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Libj___- __ 
Vol 

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JOHX KEATS. 



THE 



Poetical Works 



OF 



JOHN KEATS. 



WITH A MEMOIR* 



3? JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



if 



NEW YORK 

HURST & COMPANY 

Publishers 

t a 



10 



Bequest 

Albert Adsit demons 

Aug. 24, 1033 

(Not available for exchang-e) 




CONTENTS. 

Thw Life o» Keats .... 7 

Exdtmion: A Poetic Romance 88 

Lamia 140 

Isabella, " * the Pot op Basil: A Story, from 

Bocca«**o 170 

Tb« Eve of St. Agnes 180 

Hyperio* 908 

Miscellaneous Poems. 

Dedication to Leigh Hunt, Esq. 330 

"I »wod tiptoe upon a little mil" 231 

Sp*amen of an Induction to a Poem 238 

Candore : A Fragment , 240 

To some Ladies, on receiving a curious Shell.. . . 245 
On receiving a Copy of Verses from the same 

Ladies 240 

To 248 

To Hope 250 

Imitation of Spenser 251 

" Woman ! when I behold thee flippant, vain ". . 252 

Ode to a Nightingale 254 

Ode to a Grecian tFrn 256 

Oae to Psyche 258 

Fancy 260 

Ode 062 

To Autumn 064 

Ode on Melancholy e , 061 

Lines on the Mermaid Tavern 060 

Robin Hood 067 

Sleep and Poetry 000 

Stanzas 000 



f T CONTENTS. 

Epistles. fag* 

To George Felton Mathew 285 

To mv Brother George 287 

To Charles Cowden Clarke 292 

Sonnets. 

To a Friend who sent me some Roses 299 

To my Brother George 300 

To 800 

" O Solitude ! if I must with thee dwell " .\ SOI 

" How many Bards gild the lapses of Time! ".. . SOI 

To G. A. W 302 

Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left 

Prison 302 

To my Brother 303 

Addressed to Haydon 303 

the Same. . fc 304 

On first looking into Chapman's Homer 304 

On leaving some Friends at an early Hour 305 

" Keen fitful gusts are whispering here and there " 305 

" To one who has been long in city pent " 306 

On the Grasshopper and Cricket. . v 306 

To Kosciusko 307 

" Happy is England ! I could be content " 307 

The Human Seasons 308 

On a Picture of Leander 308 

To Ailsa Rock 309 

On seeing the Elgin Marbles 3 9 

To Haydon: with the preceding sonnet 310 

Written in the Cottage where Burns was born. . 310 

To the Nile 312 

On sitting down to read " King Lear " once again 3j 2 
" Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud "... 318 
Posthumous Poems. 

Fingal's Cave 815 

To 316 

Hvmn to Apollo 31s 

Lines 319 

Song 320 

Faery Song 321 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad 322 

The Eve of St. Mark. (Unfinished) 324 

To Fanny 327 

Bonnets. 
14 Oh ! how I love, on a fair summer's eve " 830 



CONTENTS. * 

Posthumous Poems. {Continued.) pagb 

Sonnets. 
To a Young Lady who sent me a Laurel Crown 881 
M After dark vapors have oppress' £ our plains " . 831 
Written on the Blank Space of a Leaf at the End 
of Chaucer's Tale of "The Flowre and the 

Lefe" 332 

On the Sea 332 

On Leigh Hunt's Poem, the " Story of Rimini ". 333 
" When I have fears that I may cease to be " . . . 833 

To Homer 834 

Answer to a Sonnet by J. H. Reynolds 33 i 

To J. H. Reynolds 335 

To 335 

ToSleep 836 

On Fame . 336 

On Fame 33? 

" Why did I laugh to-night ? No voice will tell M 337 

On a Dream 338 

" If by dull rhvines our English must be chain' d " 33f 
" The day is gone, and all its sweets are gono " . 33b 
u I cry your mercy — pity — love — ay, love ' \ . . 33£ 
date's Last Sonnet S4C 



tetfRts** 





THE LIFE OF KEATS. 



\ 
Thebh are few poets whose works contain slight- 
er hints of their personal history than those of 
Keats; yet there are, perhaps, even fewer, whose 
real lives, or rather the conditions upon which they 
lived, are moire clearly traceable in what they have 
written. To write the life of a man was formerly 
understood to mean the cataloguing and placing of 
circumstances, of those things which stood about the 
life and were more or less related to it, but were 
not the life itself. But Biography from day to day 
holds dates cheaper and facts dearer. A man's lira 
(as far as its outward events are concerned^) may 
be made for him, as his clothes are by the tailor, of 
this cut or that, of finer or coarser material, but the 
gait and gesture show through, and give to trap- 
pings, in themselves characterless, an individuality 
that belongs to the man himself. It is those essen- 
tial facts which underlie the life and make the 
ind vidual man, that are of importance, and it is 
the cropping out of these upon the surface, that 
gives us indications by which to judge of the true 
nature hidden below. Every man has his block 
given him, and the figure he cuts will depend very 
much upon the shape of that — upon the knots and 
twists which existed in it from the beginning. We 
were designed in the cradle, perhaps earlier, and 
it is in finding out this design, and shaping our- 
selves to it, that our yean are spent wisely It 



8 THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

the vain endeavor to make ourselves what wo are 
not that has strewn history with so many broken 
purposes and lives left in the rough. 

Keats hardly lived long enough to develop a 
well-outlined character, for that results commonly 
from the resistance made by temperament to the 
many influences by which the world, as it may 
happen then to be, endeavors to mould every one 
in its own image. What his temperament was we 
can see clearly, and also that it subordinated itself 
more and more to the discipline of art. 

John Keats, the second of four children, like 
Chaucer, was a Londoner, but, unlike Chaucer, he 
was certainly not of gentle blood. Mr. Monckton 
Milnes, who seems to have had a kindly wish to 
create him gentleman by brevet, says that he was 
u born in the upper ranks of the middle class." 
This shows a commendable tenderness for the 
nerves of English society, and reminds one of 
Northcote's story of the violin-player who, wishing 
to compliment his pupil, George III., divided all 
fiddlers into three classes, those who could not play 
at all, those who played very badly, and those who 
played very well, assuring his majesty that he had 
made such commendable progress as to have al- 
ready reached the second rank. The American 
public will perhaps not be disturbed by knowing thai 
the father of Keats (as Mr. Milnes had told us in 
an earlier biography) " was employed in the estab- 
lishment of Mr. Jennings, the proprietor of large 
livery-stables on the Pavement in Moorfields, nea?> 
ly opposite the entrance into Finsbury Circus.'' 
So that, after all, it was not so bad ; for, Jirst, M*. 
Jennings was a proprietor; second, he was the 
proprietor of an establishment; third, he was the 
proprietor of a large establishment ; and, fourth^ 
this large establishment was near 7 y opposite Fins* 



THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

bury Circus, — a name which vaguely dilates tht 
imagination with all sorts of conjectured grandeurs 
It is true, Leigh Hunt asserts that Keats " was a 
little too sensitive on the score of his origin," * bm 
we can find no trace of such a feeling either in his 
poetry, or in such of his letters as have been print- 
ed. We suspect the fact to have been that ha 
resented with becoming pride the vulgar Black- 
wood and Quarterly standard which measured 
genius by genealogies. It is enough that his poeti- 
cal pedigree is of the best, tracing through Spenser 
to Chaucer, and that Pegasus does not stand at 
Every even in the largest establishments in Moor- 
fields. 

As well as we can make out, then, the father of 
Keats was a groom in the service of Mr. Jennings, 
and married the daughter of his master. Thus, on 
the mother's side, at least, we find a grandfather ; 
on the father's there is no hint of such an ancestor, 
iiid we must charitably take him for granted. It 
is of more importance that the elder Keats was a 
man of sense and energy, and that his wife was a 
lively and intelligent woman, who hastened the 
birth of the poet by her passionate devotion to 
amusement, bringing him into the world, a seven 
months' child, on the 29th October, 1795, instead 
of the 29th December, as would have been con- 
ventionally proper. Mr. Milnes describes her as 
" tall, with a large oval face, and a somewhat satur- 
nine demeanor." f This last circumstance does not 
agree very well with what he had just before told 
us of her liveliness ; but he consoles us by adding 
that " she succeeded, however, in inspiring her 
children with the profoundest affection." This was 
particularly true of John, who once, when between 
Four and five years old, mounted guard at her 

* Hunt's Autobiography, (American edition,) vol. ii. p 88 
'a Life of Keats, (American edition,) p. 1&. 



10 THE LIFE OF KEAT8. 

chamber-door with an old sword, when she waf 
ill, and the doctor had ordered her not to be dis- 
turbed.* 

In 1804, Keats being in his ninth year, his fa- 
ther was killed by a fall from his horse. Hiflf 
mother seems to have been ambitious for her chil- 
dren, and there was some talk of sending John to 
Harrow. Fortunately this plan was thought too 
expensive, and he was sent instead to the School 
of Mr. Clarke at Enfield with his brothers. A 
maternal uncle, who had distinguished himself by 
his courage under Duncan at Camperdown, was 
the hero of his nephews, and they went to school 
resolved to maintain the family reputation for cour- 
age. John was always fighting, and was chiefly 
noted among his school-fellows as a strange com- 
pound of pluck and sensibility* He attacked an 
usher who had boxed his brother's ears, and when 
his mother died, in 1810, was moodily inconsolable, 
(in spite, it seems, of her " saturnine demeanor,") 
hiding himself for several days in a nook under the 
master's desk, and refusing all comfort from teacher 
or friend. 

He was popular at school, as boys of spirit al- 
ways are, and impressed his companions with a 
sense of his power. They thought he would one 
day be a famous soldier. This may have been ow- 
ing to the stories he told them of the heroic uncle, 
whose deeds, we may be sure, were properly fa- 
moused by the boy Homer, and whom they proba- 
bly took for an admiral at the least, as it would have 
been well for Keats's literary prosperity if he had 
been. At any rate, they thought John would be 
a great man, whic^ is the main thing, for the pub- 
lic opinion of the playground is truer and more dis- 
cerning than that of the world ; and if you tell us 

* Hay don tells the story differently , but we think Mr. Milne** 
version the best 



THE LIFE OF KEAT8. 11 

what the boy was, we will tell you what the mas 
longs to be, however he may be repressed by ne* 
cessity or fear of the police reports. 

Mr. Milnes has failed to discover anything else 
especially worthy of record in the school life of 
Keats. He translated the twelve books of the 
iEneid, read Robinson Crusoe and the Incas of 
Peru, and looked into Shakspeare. He left school 
in 1810, with little Latin and no Greek, but he had 
studied Spence's Poly metis, Tooke's Pantheon, and 
Lempriere's Dictionary, and knew gods, nymphs, 
and heroes, which were quite as good company as 
aorists and aspirates. It is pleasant to fancy the 
horror of those respectable writers if their pages 
could suddenly have become alive under their pens 
with all that the young poet saw in them.* 

On leaving school, he was apprenticed for five 
years to a surgeon at Edmonton. His master was 
a Mr. Hammond, " of some eminence " in his pro- 
fession, as Mr. Milnes takes care to assure us. The 
place was of more importance than the master, for 
its neighborhood to Enfield enabled him to keep 
up his intimacy with the family of his former 
teacher, Mr. Clarke, and to borrow books of them. 

* There is always some one willing to make himself a sort of 
accessory after the fact in any success ; always an old woman or 
two, ready to remember omens of all quantities and qualities in 
the childhood of persons who have become distinguished. Ac- 
cordingly, a certain " Mrs. Grafty of Craven Street, Finsbury," 
assures Mr. George Keats, when he tells her that John is deter- 
mined to be a poet, " that this was very odd, because when he 
could just speak, instead of answering questions put to him, he 
would always make a rhyme to the last word people said, and 
then laugh." The early histories of heroes, like those of na- 
tions, are always more or less mythical, and we give the story for 
what it is worth. Doubtless there is a gleam of intelligence in it, 
for the old lady pronounces it odd that any one should determine 
to be a poet, and seems to have wished to hint that the matter 
was determined earlier and by a higher disposing power. There 
are few children who do not soon discover the cTiarm of rhyme, 
and perhaps fewer who can resist making fun of the Mrs. Graftyg 
Of Craven Street, Finsbury, when they nave tne chance. 8w 
Havdon's Autobiography •, vofc. i. p. 861. 



12 THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

Ip 1812, when he was in his seventeenth year 
Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke lent him the Faeris 
Queene. Nothing that is told of Orpheus oi 
Amphion is more wonderful than this miracle of 
Spenser's, transforming a surgeon's apprentice into 
a great poet. Keats learned at once the secret of 
his birth, and henceforward his indentures ran to 
Apollo instead of Mr. Hammond. Thus could the 
Muse defend her son. It is the old story, — the 
lost heir discovered by his aptitude for what is 
gentle and knightly. 

Before long we find him studying Chaucer, then 
Shakspeare, and afterward Milton. That he read 
wisely, his comments on the Paradise Lost are 
enough to prove. He now also commenced poet 
himself, but does not appear to have neglected the 
study of his profession. He was a youth of energy 
and purpose, and, though he no doubt penned 
many a stanza when he should have been anato- 
mizing, and walked the hospitals accompanied by 
the early gods, nevertheless passed a very credita- 
ble examination in 1817. In the spring of this 
year, also, he prepared to take his first degree as 
poet, and accordingly published a small volume 
containing a selection of his earlier essays in verse. 
It attracted little attention, and the rest of thigj 
year seems to have been occupied with a journey' 
on foot in Scotland, and the composition of En-- 
dymion, which was published in 1818. Milton's! 
Tetrachordon was not better abused ; but Milton'*! 
assailants were unorganized, and were obliged each J 
to print and pay for his own dingy little quarto, ! 
trusting to the natural laws of demand and supply 
to furnish him with readers. Keats was arraigned 
by the constituted authorities of literary justice. 
They might be, nay, they were Jeffrieses and 
Scroggses, but the sentence was published, and the 
penalty inflicted before all England. The differ- 



THE LIFE OF KEATS. 13 

ence between his fortune and Milton's was that be- 
tween being pelted by a mob of personal enemies, 
and being set in the pillory. In the first case., the 
annoyance brushes off mostly with the mud ; in 
the last, there is no solace but the consciousness of 
suffering in a great cause. This solace, to a certain 
extent, Keats had ; for his ambition was noble, and 
he hoped not to make a great reputation, but to be 
a great poet. Haydon says that Wordsworth and 
Keats were the only men he had ever seen who 
looked conscious of a lofty purpose. 

It is curious that men should resent more fiercely 
what they suspect to be good verses, than what 
they know to be bad morals. Is it because they 
feel themselves incapable of the one, and not of the 
other ? However it be, the best poetry has been 
the most savagely attacked, and men who scrupu- 
lously practised the Ten Commandments as if there 
were never a not in any of them, felt every senti- 
ment of their better nature outraged by the Lyrical 
Ballads. It is idle to attempt to show that Keats 
did not suffer keenly from the vulgarities of Black- 
wood and the Quarterly. He suffered in propor- 
tion as his ideal was high, and he was conscious of 
falling below it. _ In England, especially, it is not 
pleasant to be ridiculous, even if you are a lord ; 
but to be ridiculous and an apothecary at the same 
time, is almost as bad as it was formerly to be ex- 
communicated. A priori, there was something 
absurd in poetry written by the son of an assistant 
in the livery-stables of Mr. Jennings, even though 
they were an establishment, and a large establish- 
ment, and nearly opposite Finsbury Circus Mr. 
Gifford, the ex-cobbler, thought so" in the Quar- 
terly, and Mr. Terry, the actor* thought so even 
more distinctly in Blackwood, bidding the young 

* Ha/don (Autobiography, vol. i. p. 879) says that he " rtrontf 
<y suspects " Terry to have written the articles in Blackwood. 



14 THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

apothecary " back to his gallipots ! " It is not 
pleasant to be talked down upon by your inferiors 
who happen to have the advantage of position, nor 
to be drenched with ditch-water, though you know 
it to be thrown by a scullion in a garret. 

Keats, as his was a temperament in which sensi- 
bility was excessive, could not but be galled by 
this treatment. He was galled the more that hi 
was also a man of strong sense, and capable of 
understanding clearly how hard it is to make men 
acknowledge solid value in a person whom they 
have once heartily laughed at. Reputation is in 
itself only a farthing-candle, of wavering and un- 
certain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the 
light by which the world looks for and finds merit. 
Keats longed for fame, but longed above all to 
deserve it. Thrilling with the electric touch of 
sacred leaves, he saw in vision, like Dante, that 
small procession of the elder poets to which only 
elect centuries can add another laurelled head. 
Might he, too, deserve from posterity the love and 
reverence which he paid to those antique glories ? 
It was no unworthy ambition, but everything was 
against him, — birth, health, even friends, since it 
was partly on their account that he was sneered at 
His very name stood in his way, for Fame loves 
best such syllables as are sweet a-nd sonorous on the 
tongue, like Spenserian, Shakspearian. In spite of 
Juliet,, there is a great deal in names, and when the 
fairies come with their gifts tu the cradle of the 
selected child, let one, wiser than the rest, choose 
a name for him from which well-sounding deriva- 
tives can be made, and best of all with a termina- 
tion in on. Men judge the current coin of opinion 
by the ring, and are readier to take without ques- 
tion whatever is Platonic, Baconian, Newtonian, 
Johnsonian, Washingtonian, Jeflfersonian, Napol- 
eonic, and all th<» iest You cannot make a good 



TBE LIFE OF KEATS. 13 

adjective out of Keats, — the more pity, — and tc 
say a thing is Keatsy is to contemn it. Fate likes 
fine names. 

Haydon tells us that Keats was very much de- 
pressed by the fortunes of his book. This was nat- 
ural enough, but he took it all in a manly way, and 
determined to revenge himself by writing better 
poetry. He knew that activity, and not despon- 
dency, is the true counterpoise to misfortune. 
Haydon is sure of the change in his spirits, because 
he would come to the painting-room and sit silent 
for hours. But we rather think that the conversa- 
tion, where Mr. Haydon was, resembled that in a 
young author's first play, where the other inter- 
locutors are only brought in as convenient points 
for the hero to bitcb the interminable web of his 
monologue on. Besides, Keats had been continu- 
ing his education this year, by a course of Elgin 
marbles and pictures by the great Italians, and 
might very naturally have found little to say about 
Mr. Haydon's extensive works, which he would 
have cared to hear. Mr. Milnes, on the other 
hand, in his eagerness to prove that Keats was not 
killed by the article in the Quarterly, is carried too 
far toward the opposite extreme, and more than 
hints that he was not even hurt by it. This would 
have been true of Wordsworth, who, by a constant 
companionship with mountains, had acquired some- 
thing of their manners, but was simply impossible 
to a man of Keats's temperament. 

On the whole, perhaps, we need not respect 
Keats the less for having been gifted with sensibil- 
ity, and may even say what we believe to be true, 
that his health was injured by the failure of his 
book. A man cannot have a sensuous nature and 
be pachydermatous at the same time ; and if he be 
imaginative as well as sensuous, he suffers just in 
proportion to the amount of his imagination. It if 



A e THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

perfectly true that what we call the world, in these 
affairs, is nothing more than a mere Brocken spec 
tre, the projected shadow of ourselves ; but as Jong 
as we do not know it, it is a very passable giant 
We are not without experience of natures so purely 
intellectual that their bodies had no more concern 
in their mental doings and sufferings than a house 
has with the good or ill fortune of its occupant. 
But poets are not built on this plan, and especially 
poets like Keats, in whom the moral seems to have 
so perfectly interfused the physical man, that you 
might almost say he could feel sorrow with hie 
hands, so truly did his body, like that of Donne's 
mistress, think and remember and forebode. The 
healthiest poet of whom our civilization has been 
capable says that when he beholds 

" desert a beggar born, 

And strength by limping sway disabled, 
And art made tongue-tied by authority," 

(alluding, plainly enough, to the Giffords of his 
day,) 

" And simple truth miscalled simplicity," 
(as it was long afterward in Wordsworth's case,) 

" And Captive Good attending Captain IU," 

that then even he, the poet to whom of all others 
life seems to have been dearest, as it was also the 
fullest of enjoyment, " tired of all these," had noth- 
ing for it but to cry for " restful Death." 

Keats, as we have said, accepted his ill fortune 
courageously. On the 9th of October, 1818, he 
writes" to his publisher, Mr. Hessey, " I cannot but 
feel indebted to those gentlemen who have taken 
my part. As for the rest, I begin to get. acquainted 
<dth my own strength and weakness. Praise or 
iame has but a momentary effect on the man 
whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a 



27/*, i.lt'M OF KEATS. \l 

severe critic of his own works. My own domestics 
criticism lias given me pain without comparison be- 
yond what * Blackwood 9 or the ' Quarterly ' could 
inflict • *nd also, when I feel I am right, no exter- 
nal praise can give me such a glow as my own soli- 
tary reperception and ratification of what is fine. 
J. S. is perfectly right in regard to * the slipshod 
Endymion.' That it is so is no fault of mine. 
No ! though it may sound a little paradoxical, it is 
as good as I had power to make it by myself. Had 
I been nervous about its being a perfect piece, and 
with that view asked advice and trembled over 
every page, it would not have been written ; for it 
is not in my nature to fumble. I will write inde- 
pendently. I have written independently without 
judgment. I may write independently and with 
judgment, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must 
work out its own salvation in a man. It cannot be 
matured by law and precept, but by sensation and 
watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must 
create itself. In * Endymion ' I leaped headlong 
into the sea, and thereby have become better ac- 
quainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and 
the rocks, than it i had stayed upon the green 
shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and 
comfortable advice. I was never afraid of fail- 
ure ; for I would sooner fail than not be among the 
greatest. ' * 

This was undoubtedly true, and it was naturally 
the side which a large-minded person would dis- 
play to a friend. This is what he thought ; but 
whether it was what he felt, we think doubtful 
We look upon it rather as one of the phenomena 
of that multanimous nature of the poet, which makes 
him for the moment that which he has an intellect- 
ual perception of. Elsewhere be says something 
which seems to hint at the true state of the ea^ 

# Milnee's Life and Letters of Keats, pp. 145-3 

a 



18 THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

"I must think that difficulties ner«,e the spirit 
of a man : they make our prime objects a refuge as 
well as a passion" One cannot help contrasting 
Keats with Wordsworth ; the one altogether poet, 
the other essentially a Wordsworth with the poetic 
faculty added ; the one shifting from form to form, 
and from style to style, and pouring his hot throb- 
bing life into every mould ; the other remaining al- 
ways the individual, producing works, and not so 
much living in his poems as memorially recording 
his life in them. When Wordsworth alludes to the 
foolish criticisms on his writings, he speaks serenely 
and generously of Wordsworth the poet, as if he 
were an unbiassed third person, who takes up the 
argument merely in the interest of literature. He 
towers into a bald egotism which is quite above and 
beyond selfishness. Poesy was his employment ; it 
was Keats's very existence ; and he felt the rough 
treatment of his verses as if it had been the wound- 
ing of a limb. To Wordsworth, composing was a 
healthy exercise ; his slow pulse and un impressible 
nature gave him assurance of a life so long that he 
could wait ; and when we read his poems we should 
never suspect the existence in him of any sense but 
that of observation, as if Wordsworth the poet were 
only a great sleepless eye, accompanied by Mr. 
Wordsworth, the distributer of stamps, as a rever- 
ential scribe and Baruch. But every one of Keats^ 
poems was a sacrifice of vitality ; a virtue went 
away from him into every one of them ; even yet, 
as we turn the leaves, they seem to warm and thrill 
our fingers with the flush of his fine senses, and 
the flutter of his electrical nerves, and we do not 
wonder he felt that what he did was to be done 
ftwiftly. 

In the mean time, his younger brother languished 
and died; his elder seems to have been in some 
way unfortunate, and had gone to America, and 



THE LIFE OF KEATS. 19 

Keats himself showed symptoms of the hereditary 
disease which caused his death at last. It is in 
October, 1818, tiiat we find the first allusions to a 
passion, which waa, ere long, to consume him. It 
is plain enough beforehand, that those were not 
moral or mental graces that should attrac t a man 
like Keats. His intellect was satisfied and ab- 
sorbed by his art, his books, and his friends. He 
could have companionship and appreciation from 
men ; what he craved of woman was only repose. 
That luxurious nature, which would have tossed 
uneasily on a crumpled rose-leaf, must have some- 
thing softer t/j rest upon than intellect, something 
less ethereal than culture. It was his body that 
needed to have its equilibrium restored, the waste 
of his nervous energy that must be repaired by 
deep draughts of the overflowing life and drowsy 
tropical force of an abundant and healthily-poised 
womanhood. Writing to his sister-in-law, he says 
of this nameless person : " She is not a Cleopatra, 
but is, at least, a Charmian ; she has a rich eastern 
look ; she has fine eyes, and fine manners. When 
she comes into a room, she makes the same impres- 
sion as the beauty of a leopardess. She is too fine 
and too conscious of herself to repulse any man 
who may address her. From habit, she thinks that i 
nothing particular. I always find myself at ease I 
with such a woman ; the picture before me alwayf ; 
gives me a life and animation which I cannot pos i 
wbly feel with anything inferior. I am at such I 
times too much occupied in admiring, to be awk- 1 
ward, or in a tremble. I forget myself entirely, * 
because I live in her. You will by this time think < 
I am in love with her, so, before I go any farther, I 
will tell you that I am not. She kept me awake 
one night, as a tune of Mozart's might do. I speak 
of the thing as a pastime and an amusement, than 
which I can feel none deeper than a conversation 



20 TEE LIFE OF KEATS. 

with an imperial woman, the very yes and no oi 

whose life is to me a banquet I like hei 

and her like, because one has no sensation ; whal 

we both are, is taken for granted She 

walks across a room in such a manner that a 
man is drawn toward her with magnetic power. 

I believe, though, she has faults, thti 

same as a Cleopatra or a Charmian might have 
nad. Yet she is a fine thing, speaking in a worldly 
way ; for there are two distinct tempers of mind 
in which we judge of things : the worldly, theat- 
rical, and pantomimical ; and the unearthly, spirit- 
ual, and ethereal. In the former, Bonaparte, Lord 
Byron, and this Charmian hold the first place in 
our minds ; in the latter, John Howard, Bishop 
Hooker, rocking his child's cradle, and you, my 
dear sister, are the conquering feelings. As a man 
of the world, I love the rich talk of a Charmian ; 
as an eternal being, I love the thought of you. I 
should like her to ruin me, and I should like you 
to save me." 

It is pleasant always to see Love hiding his head 
with such pains, while his whole body is so clearly 
visible, as in this extract. This lady, it seems, is 
not a Cleopatra, only a Charmian ; but presently 
we find that she is imperial. He does not love her, 
but he would just like to be ruined by her, nothing 
more. This glimpse of her, with her leopardess 
beauty, crossing the room and drawing men after 
her magnetically, is all we have. She seems to 
have been still living in 1848, and, as Mr. Mi4nes 
tells us, kept the memory of the poet sacred. " She 
is an East Indian," Keats says, " and ought to 
be her grandfathers heir." Her name we do not 
know. 

Between this time and the spring of 1820, he 
aeems to have worked assiduously. Of course, 
trorldiy success was of more importance than ever 



THE LIFE OF KEATS. 21 

fie began Hyperion, but had given it up in Septem- 
ber, 1819, because, as he said, "there were too many 
Miltonic inversions in it." He wrote Lamia aftei 
an attentive study of Drvden's versification. This 
period also produced the Eve of St. Agnes, Isabella, 
and the ode^ to the Nightingale, and to the Grecian 
Urn. He studied Italian, read Ariosto, and wrote 
part of a humorous poem. The Cap and Bells. Ha 
tried his hand at tragedy, and Mr. Milnes has pub- 
lished among his " Remains," Otho the Great, and 
all that was ever written of King Stephen. We 
think he did unwisely, for a biographer is hardly 
called upon to show how ill his hiographee could do 
anything. 

In the winter of 1820, he was chilled in riding 
en the top of a stage-coach, and came home in a 
state of feverish excitement. He was persuaded to 
go to bed, and in getting between the cold sheets, 
coughed slightly. " That is blood in my mouth," 
he said. " Bring me the candle ; let me see this 
blood." It was of a brilliant red, and his medical 
knowledge enabled him to interpret the augury. 
Those narcotic odors that seem to breathe seaward 
and steep in repose the senses of the voyager who 
is drifting toward the shore of the mysterious Other 
World, appeared to envelop him, and, looking 
up with sudden calmness, he said, " I know the 
color of that blood ; it is arterial blood ; I cannot 
be deceived in that color. That drop is my death 
warrant ; I must die." 

There was a slight rally during the summer el 
that year, but toward autumn he grew worse again, 
and it was decided that he should go to Italy. He 
was accompanied thither by his friend, Mr. Severn, 
an artist. After embarking, he wrote to his friend, 
Mr. Brown. We give a part of this letter, which 
is so deeply tragic that the sentences we take 
almost seem to break away from the rest with a 



tf THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

cry of anguish, like the branches of Dante's kmen 
table wood. 

" I wish to write on subjects that will not agitate 
me much. There is one I must mention and havfl 
done with it. Even if my body would recover of 
itself, this would prevent it. The very thing which 
I want to live most for will be a great occasion of 
my death, I cannot help it. Who can help it ? 
Were I in health it would make me ill, and how 
can I bear it in my state ? I dare say you will be 
able to guess on what subject I am harping : you 
know what was my greatest pain during the first 
part of my illness at your house. I wish for death 
every day and night to deliver me from these pains, 
and then I wish death away, for death would 
destroy even those pains, which are better than 
nothing. Land and sea, weakness and decline, are 
great separators, but Death is the great divorcer 
forever. When the pang of this thought has 
passed through my mind, 1 may say the bitterness 
of death is passed. I often wish for you, that you 
might flatter me with the best. I think, without 
my mentioning it, for my sake, you would be a 

friend to Miss when I am dead. You think 

she has many faults, but for my sake think she has 
not one. If there is anything you can do for her 
by word or deed, I know you will do it. I am in 
a state at present in which woman, merely as 
woman, can have no more power over me than 
stocks and stones, and yet the differen ;e of my 

sensations with respect to Miss and my sister 

is amazing : the one seems to absorb the other to 
a degree incredible. I seldom think of my brother 
and sister in America ; the thought of leaving 

Miss is beyond everything horrible, — the 

sense of darkness coming over me, — I eternally 
see her figure eternally vanishing ; some of the 
ohrases she was in the habit of using during my 



THE LIFE OF KEAT8. 21 

last nursing at Wentworth Place ring in my ears. 
Is there another life ? Shall I awake and find all 
this a dream ? There must be, — we cannot be 
created for this sort of suffering." 

To the same friend he writes again from Naples, 
(1st November, 1820) : 

"The persuasion that I shall see her no more 
will kill me. My dear Brown, I should have had 
her when I was in health, and I should have re- 
mained well. I can bear to die ; I cannot bear 
to leave her. Oh, God ! God ! God ! Everything 
I have in my trunks that reminds me of her 
goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she 
put in my travelling-cap scalds my head. My 
imagination is horribly vivid about her ; I see her 
— I hear her. There is nothing in the world of 
sufficient interest to divert me from her a moment 
This was the case when I was in England ; I can- 
not recollect, without shuddering, the time that I 
was a prisoner at Hunt's, aad used to keep my eyes 
fixed on Hampstead all day. Then there was a 
good hope of seeing her again — Now ! — O that I 
could be buried near where she lives ! I am afraid 
to write to her — to receive a letter from her — to 
see her handwriting would break my heart — Even 
to hear of her anyhow, to see her name written, 
would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, 
what am I to do ? Where can I look for consola* 
tion or ease ? If I had any chance of recovery, 
this passion would kill me. Indeed, through the 
whole of m) illness, both at your house and at 
Kentish Town, this fever has never ceased wearing 
me out." 

The two friends went almost immediately from 
Naples to Rome, where Keats was treated with great 
kindness by the distinguished physician, Dr. (after- 
ward Sir James) Clark.* But there was no hope 

• Tho lodging of Koatt wu on the Piazza di Spagna, In tbt 



24 THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

from the first. His disease was beyond remedy, ai 
his heart was beyond comfort. The very fact that 
life might be happy deepened his despair. H* 
might not have sunk so soon, but the waves in which 
he was struggling looked only the blacker that they 
were shone upon by the signal-torch that promised 
safety, and love, and rest. 

It is good to know that one of Keats's last pleas- 
ures was in hearing Severn read aloud from a vol- 
ume of Jeremy Taylor. On first coming to Rome, 
he had bought a copy of Alfieri, but finding on the 
second page these lines, 

Misera me ! sollievo a me non resta 
Altro che il pianto, ed il pianto e delitto, 

he laid down the book and opened it no more. On 
the 14th February, 1821, Severn speaks of a change 
that had taken place in him toward greater quietness 
and peace. He talked much, and fell at last into a 
sweet sleep, in which he seemed to have happy 
dreams. Perhaps he heard the soft footfall of the 
angel of Death, pacing to and fro under his win- 
dow, to be his Valentine. That night he asked to 
have this epitaph inscribed upon his gravestone, 

"HERE LIES ONI WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER." 

On the 23d, he died, without pain and as if falling 
asleep. His last words were, " I am dying ; I shall 
die easy ; don't be frightened ; be firm and thank 
God it has come ! " 

He was buried in the Protestant burial-ground at 
Rome, in that part of it which is now disused and 
secluded from the rest. A short time before his 
death, he told Severn that he thought h?s intensesf 
pleasure in life had been to watch the growth of 
flowers ; and once, after lying peacefully awhile, he 

Brst house on the right hand in going up the Scalinata. Mi 
Severn's Studio is said to have been in the CanceUo over the gar 
den-gate of the Villa Negroni* pleasantly familiar to all Amen 
•ans aa the Roman home of their eonntryman Crawford . 



THE LIFE OF KEATS. M 

said, " I feel the flowers growing over me." Hii 
grave is marked by a little head-stone, on which are 
carved somewhat rudely his name and age, and th* 
epitaph dictated by himself. No tree or shrub haa 
been planted near it ; but the daisies, faithful to 
their buried lover, crowd his small mound with a 
galaxy of their innocent stars, more prosperous thap 
those under which he lived. 

In person, Kea** was below the middle height, 
with a head small in proportion to the breadth of his 
shoulders. His hair was brown and fine, falling in 
natural ringlets about a face in which energy and 
sensibility were remarkably mixed up. Every feat- 
ure was delicately cut ; the chin was bold ; and 
about the mouth something of a pugnacious expres- 
sion. His eyes were mellow and glowing, large, 
dark, and sensitive. At the recital of a noble ac- 
tion, or a beautiful thought, they would suffuse with 
tears, and his mouth trembled.* Haydon says that 
his eyes had an inward Delphian look that was per- 
fectly divine. 

The faults of Keats's poetry are obvious enough ; 
but it should be remembered that he died at twenty- 
four, and that he offends by superabundance and 
not poverty. That he was overlanguaged at first 
there can be no doubt, and in this was implied the 
possibility of falling back to the perfect mean of 
diction. It is only by the rich that the costly plain- 
ness, which at once satisfies the taste and the imag 
ination, is attainable. 

Whether Keats was original or not we do not 
think it useful to discuss until it has been settled 
what originality is. Mr. Milnes tells us that this 
merit (whatever it is) has been denied to Keats, 
because his poems take the color of the authors he 
happened to be reading at the time he wrote them 

* Leigh Hunt's Autobiography , li. 43 



26 THE LIFE OF KEAT8. 

But men have their intellectual ancestry, and the 
likeness of some one of them is forever unexpectedly 
flashing out in the features of a descendant, it 
may be after a gap of several generations. In the 
parliament of the present, every man represents a 
constituency of the past. It is true that Keats has 
the accent of the men from whom he learned to 
speak, but this is to make originality a mere ques- 
tion of externals, and in this sense the author of a 
dictionary might bring an action of trover against 
every author who used his words. It is the man 
behind the words that gives them value ; and if 
Shakspeare help himself to a verse or a phrase, it 
is with ears that have learned of him to listen that 
we feel the harmony of the one, and it is the mas* 
of his intelleet that makes the other weighty witb 
meaning. Enough that we recognize in Keats that 
undefinable newness and unexpectedness that we 
call genius. The sunset is original every evening, 
though for thousands of years it has built out of the 
same light and vapor its visionary cities with domes 
and pinnacles, and its delectable mountains which 
night shall utterly abase and destroy. 

Three men, almost contemporaneous with each 
other, Wordsworth, Keats, and Byron, were the 
great means of bringing back English poetry from 
the sandy deserts of rhetoric, and recovering for 
her her triple inheritance of simplicity, sensuous- 
ness, and passion. Of these, Wordsworth was the 
only conscious reformer ; and his hostility to the 
existing formalism injured his earlier poems by 
tmgeing them with something of iconoclastic extrav- 
agance. He was the deepest thinker, Keats the 
most essentially a poet, and Byron the most keenly 
intellectual of the three. Keats had the broadest 
mind, or at least his mind was open in more sides, 
and he was able to understand Wordsworth and 
judge Byron, equally conscious, through his artistic 



THE LIFE OF KEa.^ 21 

sense, of the greatnesses of the one, and the many 
littlenesses of the other, while Wordsworth was iso- 
lated in a feeling of his prophetic character, and 
Byron had only an uneasy and jealous instinct of 
contemporary merit. The poems of Wordsworth, 
as he was the most individual, accordingly reflect 
the moods of his own nature ; those of Keats, from 
sensitiveness of organization, the moods of his own 
taste and feeling : and those of Bvron, who was im- 
pressible chiefly through the understanding, the in- 
tellectual and moral wants of the times in which he 
lived. Wordsworth has influenced most the ideas 
of succeeding poets ; Keat3 their forms ; and Byron, 
interesting to men of imagination less for his writ- 
ings than for what his writings indicate, reappears 
no more in poetry, but presents an ideal to youth 
F.Me restless with vague desires not yet regulated 
by experience nor supplied with motives by the 
duties of life. 

As every young person goes through all the 
world-old experiences, fancying them something 
peculiar and personal to himself, so it is with every 
new generation, whose youth always finds its repre- 
sentatives in its poets. Keats rediscovered the 
delight and wonder that lay enchanted in the dic- 
tionary. Wordsworth revolted at the poetic diction 
which he found in vogue, but his own language 
rarely rises above it except when it is upborne by 
the thought. Keats had an instinct for fine words, 
which are in themselves pictures and ideas, and had 
more of the power of poetic expression than any 
modern English poet. And by poetic expression 
we do not mean merely a vividness in particulars, 
but the right feeling which heightens or subdues a 
passage or a whole poem to the proper tone, and 
gives entireness to the effect. There is a great deal 
more than is commonly supposed in this choice of 
words. Men's thoughts and opinions are in a great 



28 THE LIFE OF KEATS. 

degree vassals of hiun who invents a new phrase or 
reapplies an old epithet. The thought or feeing 
a thousand times repeated, becomes his at last who 
utters it best. This power of language is veiled in 
the old legends which make the invisible powers 
the servants of some word. As soon as we have 
discovered the word for our joy or sorrow, we aie 
no longer its serfs, but its lords. We reward the 
discoverer of an anaesthetic for the body and make 
him member of all the societies, but him who finds 
a nepenthe for the soul we elect into the small 
academy of the immortals. 

The poems of Keats mark an epoch in English 
poetry ; for, however often we may find traces of 
it in others, in them found its strongest expres- 
sion that reaction against the barrel-organ style 
which had been reigning by a kind of sleepy divine 
right for half a century. The lowest point was in- 
dicated when there was such an utter confounding 
of the common and the uncommon sense that Dr 
Johnson wrote verse and Burke prose. The most 
profound gospel of criticism was, that nothing was 
good poetry that could not be translated into good 
prose, as if one should say that the test of sufficient 
moonlight was that tallow- candles could be madi 
of it. We find Keats at first going to the othei 
extreme, and endeavoring to extract green cucum 
bers from the rays of tallow ; but we see also incon- 
testable proof of the greatness and purity of hb 
poetic gift in the constant return toward equilib- 
rium and repose in his latter poems. And it is a 
repose always lofty and clear-aired, like that of the 
eagle balanced in incommunicable sunshine. In 
him a vigorous understanding developed itself in 
equal measure with the divine faculty ; thought 
emancipated itself from expression without becom- 
rog its tyrant; and music and meaning floated 
together, accordant as swan and shadow, on the 



TEE LIFE OF KEATS. 



W 



wmooth element of his verse. Without losing its 
sensuoosness, his poetry refined itself and gre^ 
more inward, and the sensational was elevated intr 
the typical by the control of that finer sense whi.c! 
underlies the senses and is the spirit of them. 

? R I 





JKNDYMION : 

▲ POETIC ROMANCE. 

UIOBIBBD TO THE MEMORY Of 

THOMAS CHATTERTON. 



•TEBTCHED METRE OF AM AKTIQQP 





PREFACE. 



Knowing within myself the manner in wnici 
this Poem has been produced, it is not without a 
feeling of regret that I make it public. 

What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the 
reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, 
immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish 
attempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The 
two first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sen- 
sible are not of such completion as to warrant their 
passing the press; nor should they if I thought a 
year's castigation would do them any good ; — it 
will not; the foundations are too sandy. It is jus^ 
that this youngster should die away : a sad thought 
for me, if I had not some hope that while it is 
dwindling I may be plotting, and fitting myself for 
verses fit to live. 

This may be speaking too presumptuously, and 
may deserve a punishment ; but no feeling man 
will be forward to inflict it ; he will leave me alone, 
with the conviction that there is not a fiercer hell 
than the failure in a great object. This is not 
written with the least atom of purpose to forestall 
oriticisms of course, but from the desire I have to 
conciliate men who are competent to look, and who 
do look with a zealous eye, to the honor of Eng- 
lish literature. 

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and tne 
mature imagination of a man is healthy ; but there 
is * space of life between, in which the soul is in a 
i 



84 PREFACE, 

ferment, the character undecided, the way of lift 
uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted ; thence pro- 
ceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters 
which those men I speak of must necessarily taste 
in going over the following pages. 

I hope I have not in too late a d»ay touched the 
beautiful mythology of Greece, and dulled iti 
brightness ; for I wish to try once more before 1 
bid it farewell. 

Thmmouth, April 10, 1818. 




ENDYMION. 



BOOK L 



A THING of beauty is a joy for ever : 
Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breath- 
ing. 
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways 
Made for our searching : yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep ; and such are daffodils 
With the green world they live in ; and clear rill* 
That for tneinelves a cooling covert make 
'Gainst the hot season ; the mid-forest brake, 
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose bloom* • 
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
We have imagined for the mighty dead ; 
All lovely tales that we have heard or read: 
An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 

Nor do we merely feel these essences 
For one short hour ; no, even as the trees 
That whisper round a temple become soon 
De&r as the temple's self, so does the 



36 ENDYMION. 

The passion poesy, glories infinite, 
Haunt us till they become a cheering light 
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, 
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercas^ 
They alway must be with us, or we die. 

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I 
Will trace the story of Endymion. 
The very music of the name has gon° 
Into my being, and each pleasant scene 
Is growing fresh before me as the green 
Of our own valleys : so I will begin 
Now while I cannot hear the city's din ; 
Now while the early budders are just new, 
And run in mazes of the youngest hue 
About old forests ; while the willow trails 
Its delicate amber ; and the dairy pails 
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the yeei 
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer 
My little boat, for many quiet hours, 
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. 
Many and many a verse I hope to write, 
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white, 
Hide in deep herbage ; and ere yet the bees 
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, 
I must be near the middle of my story. 
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, 
See it* half-finish'd : but let Autumn bold, 
With universal tinge of sober gold, 
Be all about me when I make an end. 
And now at once, adventuresome, I send 
My herald thought into a wilderness : 
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly drew 
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed 
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed. 

Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread 
A mighty forest ; for *fc« moist earth Fed 



EhDYMWN. g| 

So plenteously all weed-hidden roots 

Into o'erchanging boughs, and precious, fruits. 

And it had gloomy shades, sequester'd deep, 

Where no man went ; and if from shepherd's keem 

A lamb stray'd far a-down those inmost glens, 

Never again saw he the happy pens 

Whither his brethren, bleating with content, 

Over the hills at every nightfall went. 

Among the shepherds 'twas believed ever, 

That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever 

From the white flock, but pass'd un worried 

By any wolf, or pard with prying head, 

Until it came to some unfooted plains 

Where fed the herds of Pan : ay, great his gains 

Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there wer* 

many, 
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny, 
And ivy banks ; all leading pleasantly 
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see 
Stems thronging all around between the swell 
Of tuft and slanting branches : who could tell 
The freshness of the space of heaven above, 
Edged round with dark tree-tops ? through whios 

a dove 
Would often beat its wings, and often too 
A little cloud would move across the blue. 

Full in the middle of this pleasantness 
There stood a marble altar, with a tress 
Of flowers budded newly ; and the dew 
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew 
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve, 
And so the dawned light in pomp receive. 
For 'twas the morn : Apollo's upward fire 
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre 
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein 
A melancholy spirit well might win 
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fin? 



M END YM I ON. 

Into the winds : rain-scented eglantine 
Gave temperate sweets to that well- wooing ran ; 
The lark was lost in him ; cold springs had run 
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass ; 
Man's voice was on the mountains ; and the matt 
Of nature's lives and wonders pulsed tenfold, 
^Y) feel this sun-rise and its glories old. 

Now while the silent workings of the dawn 
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn 
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped 
A troop of little children garlanded ; 
Who gathering round the altar, seem'd to pry 
Earnestly round as wishing to espy 
Some folk of holiday : nor had they waited 
For many moments, ere their ears were sated 
With a faint breath of music, which even then 
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again. 
Within a little space again it gave 
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave, 
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking 
Through copse-clad valleys, — ere their death, 

o'ertaking 
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea. 

And now, as deep into the wood as we 
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmer'd light 
Fair faces and a rush of garments white, 
Plainer and plainer showing, till at last 
Into the widest alley they all past, 
Making directly for the woodland altar. 
O kindly muse ! let not my weak tongue falter 
In telling of this goodly company, 
Of their old piety, and of their glee : 
But let a portion of ethereal dew 
Fall on my head, and presently unmew 
My soul ; that I may dare, in wayfaring, 
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing. 



ENDYMION. 39 

Leading the way, young damsek danced along, 
Bearing the burden of a shepherd's song ; 
Each having a white wicker, overbrimni'd 
With April's tender younglings : next, well trimmdi 
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks 
As may be read of in Arcadian books ; 
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe. 
When the great deity, for earth too ripe, 
Let his divinity o'erflowing die 
In music, through the vales of Thessaly : 
Some idly trail'd their sheep-hooks on the ground, 
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound 
With ebon-tipped flutes : close after these, 
Now coming from beneath the forest trees, 
A venerable priest full soberly, 
Begirt with ministering looks : alway his eye 
Steadfast upon the matted turf he kept, 
And after him his sacred vestments swept. 
From his right hand there swung a vase, milt 

white, 
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light ; 
And in his left he held a basket full 
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could culls 
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still 
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill. 
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath, 
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth 
Of winter hoar. Then came another crowd 
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud 
Their share of the ditty. After them appeared, 
Up-follow'd by a multitude that rear'd 
Their voices to the clouds, a fair-wrought car 
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar 
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown : 
Who stood therein did seem of great renown 
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown, 
Showing like Ganymede to nianliooJ grown; 
An 1, for those simple timet, his garments were 



40 ENDYMION 

A chieftain icing's ; beneath his breast, half bare, 

Was hung a silver bugle, and between 

His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen. 

A snrile was on his countenance ; he seem'd 

To common lookers-on like one who dream'd 

Of idleness in groves Elysian : 

But there were some who feelingly could scan 

A lurking trouble in his nether lip, 

And see that oftentimes the reins would slip 

Through his forgotten hands : then would they <?igh 

And think of yellow leaves, of owlets' cry, 

Of logs piled solemnly. — Ah, weli-a-day, 

Why should our young Endymion pine away ! 

Soon the assembly, in a circle ranged, 
Stood silent round the shrine : each look was 

changed 
To sudden veneration : women meek 
Beckon'd their sons to silence ; while each cheek 
Of virgin bloom paled gently for slight fear. 
Endymion too, without a forest peer, 
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face, 
Among his brothers of the mountain chase. 
In midst of all, the venerable priest 
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least, 
And, after lifting up his aged hands, 
Thus spake he " Men of Latmos I shepherd 

bands ! 
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks : 
Whether descended from beneath the rocks 
That overtop your mountains ; whether come 
From valleys where the pipe is never dumb ; 
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stiri 
Blue harebells lightly, and where prickly furze 
Buds lavish gold ; or ye, whose precious charge 
Nibble their fill at ocean's \ery marge, 
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forion 
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn : 



END I Ml Off. 41 

Vf others and wives ! who day by day prepare 
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air ; 
And all ye gentle girls who foster up 
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup 
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth : 
Yea, every one attend ! for in good truth 
Our vows are wanting to our great god Fan. 
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than 
Night-swollen mushrooms ? Are not our wide 

plains 
Speckled with countless fleeces ? Have not rains 
Green'd over April's lap ? No howling sad 
Sickens our fearful ewes ; and we have had 
Great bounty from Endymion our lord. 
The earth is glad : the merry lark has pour'd 
His early song against yon breezy sky, 
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity." 

Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire 
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire ; 
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod 
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god. 
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while 
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile, 
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright 
Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light 
Sp™ad grayly eastward, thus a chorus sang : 

M O thou, whose mighty palace roof doth hang 
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth 
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death 
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness ; 
Who lovest to see the hamadryads dress 
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken 
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and 

hearken 
The dreary melody of bedded reeds — 
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds 



4ft END TM I ON. 

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth, 

Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth 

Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx — do thou now, 

By thy love's milky brow ! 

By all the trembling mazes that she ran, 

Hear us, great Pan 1 

u O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtle* 
Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles, 
What time thou wanderest at eventide 
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side 
Of thine enmossed realms : O thou, to whom 
Broad-leaved fig-trees even now foredoom 
Their ripen'd fruitage ; yellow-girted bees 
Their golden honeycombs ; our village leas 
Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn ; 
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, 
To sing for thee ; low-creeping strawberries 
Their summer coolness ; pent-up butterflies 
Their freckled wings ; yea, the fresh-budding ye*i 
All its completions — be quickly near, 
By every wind that nods the mountain pine, 
O forester divine 1 

** Thou, to whom every faun and satyr Hie* 
For willing service ; whether to surprise 
The squatted hare while in half-sleeping fit ; 
Or upward ragged precipices flit 
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw ; 
Or by mysterious enticement draw 
Bewilder'd shepherds to their path again ; 
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, 
And gather up all fancifullest shells 
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells, 
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping; 
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping, 
The while they pelt each other on the crown 
With silvery oak-apples, and fir-cones brown -* 



ENDTMION. 49 

By %/l the echoes that about thee ring^ 
Hear us, O satyr king ! 

t4 O Hearkener to the loud-clapping shears, 
While ever and anon to his shorn peers 
A ram goes bleating : Winder of the horn, 
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn 
Anger our huntsman : Breather round our farm* 
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms •, 
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds, 
That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, 
And wither drearily on barren moors : 
Dread opener of the mysterious doors 
Leading to universal knowledge — see, 
Great son of Dryope, 
The many that are come to pay their vows 
With leaves about their brows I 

u Be still the unimaginable lodge 
For solitary thinkings ; such as dodge 
Conception to the very bourne of heaven, 
Then leave the naked brain : be still the leaven. 
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth, 
Gives it a touch ethereal — a new birth : 
Be still a symbol of immensity : 
A firmament reflected in a sea ; 
An element filling the space between ; 
An unknown — but no more : we humbly screen 
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending, 
And giving out a shout most heaven-rending, 
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean, 
Upon thy Mount Lycean 1 " 

Even while they brought the burden to a close. 
A shout from the whole multitude arose, 
That linger'd in the air like dying rolls 
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals 
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine* 



M ENDYMIOJV 

Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine, 

Young companies nimbly began dancing 

To the swift treble pipe, and humming string. 

Ay, those fair living forms swam heavenly 

To tunes forgotten — out of memory : 

Fair creatures! whose young children's children brei 

Thermopylae its heroes — not yet dead, 

But in old marbles ever beautiful. 

High genitors, unconscious did they cull 

Time's sweet first-fruits — they danced to weariness, 

And then in quiet circles did they press 

The hillock turf, and caught the latter end 

Of some strange history, potent to send 

A young mind from its bodily tenement. 

Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent 

On eirher side ; pitying the sad death 

Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath 

Of Zephyr slew him, — Zephyr, penitent, 

Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament, 

Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain. 

The archers too, upon a wider plain, 

Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft 

And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft, 

Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top, 

Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope 

Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling 

knee 
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe, 
Poor, lonely Niobe ! when her lovely young 
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue 
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip, 
And very, very deadliness did nip 
Her motherly cheeks. Aroused from this sad mi>xi 
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd, 
Uplifting his strong bow into the air, 
Many might after brighter visions stare : 
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze 
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways. 



EFDYMION. a 

Until, from the horizon's vaulted side, 

There shot a golden splendour far and wiie, 

Spangling those million poutings of the brine 

With quivering ore : 'twas even an awful shine 

From the exaltation of Apollo's bow ; 

A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe. 

Who thus were ripe for high contemplating, 

Might turn their steps towards the sober ring 

Where sat Endvmion and the aged priest 

' Mong shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increased 

The silvery setting of their mortal star. 

There they discoursed upon the fragile bar 

That keeps us from our homes ethereal ; 

And what our duties there : to nightly call 

Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather ; 

To summon all the downiest clouds together 

For the sun's purple couch ; to emulate 

In ministering the potent rule of fate 

With speed of fire-tail'd exhalations ; 

To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons 

Sweet poesy by moonlight : besides these, 

A world of other unguess'd offices. 

Anon they wander'd, by divine converse, 

Into Elysium ; vying to rehearse 

Each one his own anticipated bliss. 

One felt heart-certain that he could not miss j 

His quick-gone love, among fair blosscm'd boughs, ' 

Where every zephyr-sigh pouts, and endows 

Her lips with music for the welcoming. 

Another wish'd, 'mid that eternal spring, j 

To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails, 

Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales : 

Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smootk 

wind, 
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind ; 
And, ever after, through those regions be 
His messenger, his little Mercury. 
Borne were athirst in soul to see again 



46 VNDYM10N. 

Their fellow-huntsmen o'er the wide champaign 
In times long past ; to sit with them, and talk 
Of all the chances in their earthly walk ; 
Comparing, joyfully, their plenteous stores 
Of happiness, to when upon the moors, 
Benighted, close they huddled from the cold, 
And shared their famish'd scrips. Thus all outtold 
Their fond imaginations, — saving him 
Whose eyelids curtain'd up their jewels dim, 
Endymion : yet hourly had he striven 
To hide the cankering venom, that had riven 
His fainting recollections. Now indeed 
His senses had swoon'd off: he did not heed 
The sudden silence, or the whispers low, 
Or the old eyes dissolving at his woe, 
Or anxious calls, or close of trembling palms, 
Or maiden's sigh, that grief itself embalms : 
But in the self-same fixed trance he kept, 
Like one who on the earth had never stept. 
Ay, even as dead-still as a marble man, 
Frozen in that old tale Arabian. 

Who whispers him so pantingly and close ? 
Peona, his sweet sister : of all those, 
His friends, the dearest. Hushing signs she mad* 
And breathed a sister's sorrow to persuade 
A yielding up, a cradling on her care. 
Her eloquence did breathe away the curse : 
She led him, like some midnight spirit nurse 
Of happy changes in emphatic dreams, 
Along a path between two little streams, — 
Guarding his forehead, with her round elbow, 
From low-grown branches, and his footsteps slot! 
From stumbling over stumps and hillocks small ; 
Until they came to where these streamlets fall, 
With mingled bubblings and a gentle rush, 
Into a river, clear, brimful, and flush 
With crystal mocking of the trees and sky. 



ENDYMION. 4? 

A little shallop, floating there bard by, 

Pointed its beak over the fringed ban* ; 

And soon it lightly dipt, and rose T And sank. 

And dipt again, with the young couple's weight, -* 

Peona guiding, through the water straight, 

Towards a bowery island opposite ; 

Which gaining presently, she steered Kght 

Into a shady, fresh, and ripply cove, 

Where nested was an arbour, overwove 

By many a summer's silent fingering ; 

To whose cool bosom she was used to bring 

Her playmates, with their needle broidery, 

And minstrel memories of times gone by. 

So she was gently glad to see him laid 
Under her favourite bower's quiet shade, 
On her own couch, new made of flower leaves, 
Dried carefully on the cooler side of sheaves 
When last the sun his autumn tresses shook, 
And the tann'd harvesters rich armfuls took 
Soon was he quieted to slumbrous rest : 
But, ere it crept upon him, he had prest 
Peona's busy hand against his lips, 
And still, a-sleeping, held her finger-tips 
In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps 
A patient watch over the stream that creeps 
Windingly by it, so the quiet maid 
Held her in peace : so that a whispering blade 
Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling 
Down in the bluebells, or a wren light rustling 
Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard 

O magic sleep ! O comfortable bird, 
That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind 
Till it is hush'd and smooth 1 O unconfined 
Restraint ! imprison'd liberty ! great key 
To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy, 
Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caveS) 



48 END YM I ON. 

Echoing grottoes, full of tumbling waves 

And moonlight ; ay, to all the mazy world 

Of silvery enchantment ! — who, upfurl'd 

Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour, 

But renovates and lives ? — Thus, in the bower, 

Endymion was ealm'd to life again. 

Opening his eyelids with a healthier brain, 

He said : " I feel this thine endearing love 

All through my bosom : thou art as a dove 

Trembling its closed eyes and sleeked wings 

About me ; and the pearliest dew not brings 

Such morning incense from the fields of May, 

As do those brighter drops that twinkling stray 

From those kind eyes. — the very home and haunt 

Of sisterly affection. Can I want 

Aught else, aught nearer heaven, than such tears! 

Yet dry them up, in bidding hence all fears 

That, any longer, I will pass my days 

Alone and sad. No, I will once more raise 

My voice upon the mountain-heights ; once more 

Make my horn parley from their foreheads hoar : 

Again my trooping hounds their tongues shall loll 

Around the breathed boar : again I'll poll 

The fair grown yew-tree, for a chosen bow : 

And, when the pleasant sun is getting low, 

Again Til linger in a sloping mead 

To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed 

Our idle sheen. So be thou cheered, sweet 1 

And, if thy lute is here, softly entreat 

My soul to keep in its resolved course." 

Hereat Peona, in their silver source, 
Shut her pure sorrow-drops with glad exclaim, 
And took a lute, from which there pulsing came 
A lively prelude, fashioning the way 
In which her voice should wander. 'Twas a laj 
More subde-cadenced, more forest wild 
Than Dryope's "one luPW of her child 



ENDYMIOZ. 4« 

And nothing since has floated in the al. 

So mournful strange. Surely some influence vare 

Went, spiritual, through the damsel's hand , 

For still, with Delphic emphasis, she. spann'd 

The quick invisible strings, even though she saw 

Endymion's spirit melt away and thaw 

Before the deep intoxication. 

But soon she came, with sudden burst, upon 

Her self-possession — swung the lute aside, 

And earnestly sa'd : " Brother, 'tis vain to hide 

That thou dost k jw of things mysterious, 

Immortal, starry ; such alone couid thus 

Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinn'd in 

aught 
Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught 
A Paphian dove upon a message sent ? 
Thy deathful bow against some deer-herd bent, 
Sacred to Dian ? Haply, thou hast seen 
Her naked limbs among the alders green ; 
And that, alas ! is death. No, I can trace 
Something more high perplexing in thy face!" 

Endymion look'd at her, and press VI her hand, 
And said, " Art thou so pale, who wast so bland 
And merry in our meadows? How is this? 
Tell me thine ailment : tell me all amiss ! 
Ah! thou hast been unhappy at the change 
Wrought suddenly in me/ What indeed more 

strange ? 
Or more complete to overwhelm surmise ? 
Ambition is no sluggard : 'tis no prize, 
That toiling years would put within my grasp, 
That I have sigh'd for : with »o deadly gasp 
No man e'er panted for a mortal love. 
So all have sec my heavier grief above 
These things which happen. Rightly have tbej 

done : 
I, who still saw the horizontal sun 
4 



60 END YM I ON. 

Heave his broad shoulder o'er the edge of tha 

world, 
Out-facing Lucifer, and then had hurPd 
My spear aloft, as signal for the chase — 
I, who, for very sport of heart, would race 
With my own steed from Araby ; pluck down 
A vulture from his towery perching ; frown 
A lion into growling, \ ^ re tire — 
To lose, at once, all my toil-breeding fire, 
And sink thus low ! but I will ease my breast 
Of secret grief, here in this bowery nest. 

" This river does not see the naked sky, 
Till it begins to progress silverly 
Around the western border of the wood, 
Whence, from a certain spot, its winding flood 
Seems at the distance like a crescent moon : 
And in vhat nook, the very pride of June, 
Had I been used to pass my weary eves ; 
The rather for the sun unwilling leaves 
So dear a picture of his sovereign power, 
And I could witness his most kingly hour, 
When he doth tighten up the golden reins, 
And paces leisurely down amber plains 
His snorting four. Now when his chariot last 
Its beams against the zodiac-lion cast, 
There blossom'd suddenly a magic bed 
Of sacred dittany, and poppies red : 
At which I wonder'd greatly, knowing well 
That but one night had wrought this flowery spell 
And, sitting down close by, began to muse 
What it might mean. Perhaps, thought 1, Mor 

pheus, 
In passing here, his owlet pinions shook ; 
Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook 
Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth. 
Had dipp'd his rod in it : such garland wealth 
Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought 



END YM I ON. 5| 

Until my head was dizzy and distraught. 

Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole 

A breeze most softly lulling to my soul ; 

And shaping visions all about my sight 

Of colors, wings, and bursts of spangly light ; 

The which became more strange, and Strang j, a&d 

dim, 
And then were gulf M in a tumultuous swim : 
And then I fell asleep. Ah, can I tell 
The enchantment that afterwards befell ? 
Yet it was but a dream : yet such a dream 
That never tongue, although it overteem 
With mellow utterance, like a cavern spring, 
Could figure out and to conception bring 
All I beheld and felt. Methought I lay 
Watching the zenith, where the milky way 
Among the stars in virgin splendour pours ; 
And travelling my eye, until the doors 
Of heaven appear'd to open for my flight, 
I became loth and fearful to alight 
From such high soaring by a downward glance* 
So kept me steadfast in that airy trance, 
Spreading imaginary pinions wide. 
When, presently, the stars began to glide. 
And faint away, before my eager view : 
At which I sigh'd that I could not pursue, 
And dropp'd my vision to the horizon's vergb ; 
And lo ! from opening clouds, I saw emerge 
The loveliest moon, that ever silver'd o'er 
A shell for Neptune's goblet ; she did soar 
So passionately bright, my dazzled soul 
Commingling with her argent spheres did roll 
Through clear and cloudy, even when she went 
At last into a dark and vapoury tent — 
Whereat, methought, the lidless-eyed train 
Of planets all were in the blue again. 
To commune with those orbs, once more I raised 
My flight right upward : but it was quite dazed 



52 ENDYM10N. 

By a bright something, sailing down apace, 
Making me quickly veil my eyes and face : 
Again I look'd, and, O ye deities, 
Who from Olympus watch our destinies 
Whence that completed form of all completeness f 
Whence came that high perfection of all sweet 

ness? 
Speak, stubborn earth, and tell me where, 

where 
Hast thou a symbol of her golden hair? 
Not oat-sheaves drooping in the western sun ; 
Not — thy soft hand, fair sister ! let me shun 
Such follying before thee — yet she had, 
Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad ; 
And they were simply gordian'd up and braided, 
Leaving, in naked comeliness, unshaded, 
Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow; 
The which were blended in, I know not how, 
With such a paradise of lips and eyes, 
Blush-tinted cheeks, half smiles, and faintest sighs, 
That, when I think thereon, my spirit clings 
And plays about its fancy, till the stings 
Of human neighbourhood envenom all. 
Unto what awful power shall I call ? 
To what high fane, — Ah ! see her hovering feet, 
More bluely vein'd, more soft, more whitely sweet, 
Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose 
From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows 
Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion ; 
'Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million 
Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed, 
Over the darkest, lushest bluebell bed, 
Handfuls of daisies. ,, — " Endymion, how strange I 
Dream within dream ! " — " She took an airy 

range, 
And then, towards me, like a very maid, 
Came blushing, waning, willing, and afraid, 
And press'd me by the hand : Ah I 'twas too much 



END YM 1 ON. 5» 

llethought I fainted at the charmed tou^h, 

Yet held my recollection, even as one 

Wh:> dives three fathoms where the waters run 

Gurgling in beds of coral : for anon, 

I felt upmounted in that region 

Where falling stars dart their artillery forth, 

And eagles struggle with the buffeting north 

That balances the heavy meteor-stone ; — 

Felt too, I was not fearful, nor alone, 

But lapp'd and lull'd along the dangerous sky. 

Soon, as it seem'd, we left our journeying high, 

And straightway into frightful eddies swoop'd; 

Such as aye muster where gray time has scoop'd 

Huge dens and caverns in a mountain's side : 

There hollow sounds aroused me, and I sigh'd 

To faint once more by looking on my bliss — 

I was distracted; madly did J kiss 

The wooing arms which hold me, and did give 

My eyes at once to death : but 'twas to live, 

To take in draughts of life from the gold fount 

Jf kind and passionate looks; to count, and count 

The moments, by some greedy help that seem'd 

A second self, that each might be redeem'd 

And plunder 'd of its load of blessedness. 

Ah, desperate mortal ! I even dared to press 

Her very cheek againstt my crowned lip, 

And, at that moment, felt my body dip 

Into a warmer air : a moment more, 

Our feet were soft in flowers. There was store 

Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes 

A scent of violets, and blossoming limes, 

Loiter'd around us ; then of honey cells, 

Made delicate from all white-flower bells ; 

And once, above the edges of our nest, 

An arch face peep'd, — an Oread as I guess'd. 

14 Why did I dream that sleepo'erpower'd me 
In midst of all this heaven ? Why not see, 



M END %MION. 

Far off, the shadows of %$ pinions dark, 

And stare them from me ? Bat no, like a spark 

That needs must die, although its little beam 

Reflects upon a di-amonc?, my sweet dream 

Fell into nothing — into stupid sleep. 

And so it was, until a gentle creep, 

A careful moving caught my waking ears, 

And up I started : Ah i my sighs, my tears, 

My clenched hands ; — tor lo T the poppies hung 

Dew-dabbled on their stalks, the ouzel sung 

A heavy ditty, and the sullen day 

Had chidden herald Hesperus away, 

With leaden looks : the solitary breeze 

Bluster'd, and slept, and its wild self did tease 

With wayward melancholy ; and I thought, 

Mark me, Peona ! that sometimes it brought 

Faint fare-thee-wells, and sigh-shrilled adieus 1 — 

Away I wander'd — all the pleasant hues 

Of heaven and earth had faded : deepest shades 

Were deepest dungeons ; heaths and sunny gladet 

Were full of pestilent light ; our taintless rills 

Seem'd sooty, and o'erspread with upturn'd gills 

Of dying fish ; the vermeil rose had blown 

In frightful scarlet, and its thorns outgrown 

Like spiked aloe. If an innocent bird 

Before my heedless footsteps stirr'd, and stirr'd I 

In little journeys, I beheld in it 

A disguised demon, missioned to knit 

My soul with und n darkness ; to entice 

My stumblings down some monstrous precipice: 

Therefore I eager Wlow'd, and did curse 

The disappointme lL Time, that aged nurse, 

Rock'd me to patience. Now, thank gentle heaven 

These things, with aU their comfortings, are give* 

To my down-sunkt i hours, and with thee, 

Sweet sister, help t tern the ebbing sea 

Of weary life." 



ENDYMION. 5* 

Thus ended he, and both 
Sat silent : for the maid was very loth 
To answer ; feeling well that breathed words 
Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords 
Ygainst the enchased crocodile, or leaps 
*Jf grasshoppers against the sun. She weeps, 
And wonders ; struggles to devise some I lame ; 
To put on such a look as would say, Shame 
On this poor weakness ! but, for all her strife, 
She could as soon have crush'daway the life 
From a sick dove. At length, to break the pause, 
She said with trembling chance : " Is this the cause f 
This all ? Yet it is strange, and sad, alas ! 
That one who through this middle earth should pass 
Most like a sojourning demi-god, and leave 
His name upon the harp-string, should achieve 
No higher bard than simple maidenhood, 
Singing alone, and fearfully, — how the blood 
Left his young cheek ; and how he used to stray 
He knew not where : and how he would say, nay 
If any said 'twas love : and yet 'twas love ; 
What could it be but love ? How a ring-dove 
Let fall a sprig of yew-tree in his path 
And how he died : and then, that love doth acathe 
The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses ; 
And then the ballad of his sad life closes 
With sighs, and an alas ! — Endymion ! 
Be rather in the trumpet's mouth, — anon 
Among the winds at large — that all may hearken 
Although, before the crystal heavens darken, 
I watch and dote upon the silver lakes 
Fictured in western cloudiness, that takes 
The semblance of gold rocks and bright gold sand% 
Islands, and creeks, and amber-fretted strands 
With horses prancing o'er them, palaces 
And towers of amethyst, — would I so tease 
My pleasant days, because 1 could not mount 
Into those regions ? The Morphean fount 



56 ENLTMJON. 

Of that fine element that visions, dreams, 

And fitful whims of sleep are made of, streams 

Into its airy channels with so subtle, 

So thin a breathing, not the spider's shuttle, 

Circled a million times within the space 

Of a swallow's nest-door, could delay a trace, 

A tinting of its quality : how light 

Must dreams themselves be ; seeing thev're 

slight 
Than the mere nothing that engenders them ) 

o c 

Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem 
Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick ? 
Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick 
For nothing but a dream ? " Hereat the you£ 
Look'd up : a conflicting of shame and rath 
Was in his plaited brow : yet his eyelids 
Widen'd a little, as when Zephyr bid& 
A little breeze to creep between the fans 
Of careless butterflies : amid his pains 
He seeni'd to taste a drop of manna-dew, 
Full palatable ; and a colour grew 
Upon his cheek, while thus he lifeful spake. 

" Peona ! ever have I long'd to slake 
My thirst for the world's praises : nothing base, 
No merely slumberous phantasm, could unlace 
The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepared — 
Though now 'tis tatter'd ; leaving my bark bared 
And sullenly drifting : yet my higher hope 
Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope, 
To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks. 
Wherein lies happiness ? In that which boo*8 
Our ready minds to fellowship divine, 
A fellowship with essence ; till we shine, 
Full alchemized, and free of space. B^bjW 
The clear religion of heaven 1 FoK 
A rose-leaf round thy finger's tap* rr <# ^ 
And soothe thy lips : hist 1 when r' A e a±\ strew 



ENDYMION. if 

Of music'u iss impregnates the free wintite, 

And with a sympathetic touch unbinds 

JSolian magic from their lucid wombs : 

Then old songs waken from enciouded toznbs * 

Old ditties sigh above their father's grave ; 

Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave 

Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot ; 

Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit, 

Where long ago a giant battle was ; 

And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass 

In every place where infant Orpheus slept. 

Feel we these things! — that moment have w 

stept 
Into a sort of oneness, and our state 
Is like a floating spirit's. But there are 
Richer entanglements, enthralments far 
More self-destroying, leading, by degree*, 
To the chief intensity : the crown of these 
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high 
Upon the forehead of humanity. 
All its more ponderous and bulky worth 
Is friendship, whence there ever issues forth 
A steady splendour ; but at the tip-top, 
There hangs by unseen film, an orbed drop 
Of light, and that is love : its influence 
Thrown in our eyes genders a novel sense, 
At which we start and fret : till in the end, 
Melting into its radiance, we blend, 
Mingle, and so become a part of it, — 
Nor with aught else can our souls interknit 
So wingedly : when we combine therewith, 
Life's self is nourish'd by its proper pith, 
And we are nurtured like a pelican brood 
Ay, so delicious is the unsating food, 
That men, who might have tower'd in the 
Of all the congregated world, to fan 
And winnow from the coming step of time 
All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime 



58 ENDYMION. 

Left by men-slugs and human serpentry, 
Have been content to let occasion die, 
Whilst they did sleep in love's Elysium. 
And, truly, I would rather be struck dumb, 
Than speak against this ardent listlessness : 
For I have ever thought that it might bless 
The world with benefits unknowingly ; 
As does the nightingale, up-percbed high, 
And cloister'd among cool and bunched lea^iia * ■- 
She sings but to her love, nor e'er conceives 
How tiptoe Night holds back her dark-gray hood 
Just so may love, although 'tis understood 
The mere commingling of passionate breath, 
Produce more than our searching witnesseth : 
What I know not : but who, of men, can tell 
That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would 

swell 
To melting pulp, that fish would have bright maiV, 
The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale, 
The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones, 
The seed its hardest, or the lute its tones, 
Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet, 
If human souls did never kiss and greet ? 

" Now, if this earthly love has power to makt 
Men's being mortal, immortal ; to shake 
Ambition from their memories, and brim 
Their measure of content ; what merest whim, 
Seems all this poor endeavour after fame, 
To one, who keeps within his steadfast aim 
A love immortal, an immortal too. 
Look not so wilder'd \ for these things are true, 
And never can be born of atomies 
That buzz about our slumbers, like brain-Hie*, 
Leaving us fancy-sick. No, no, I'm sure, 
My restless spirit never could endure 
To brood so long upon one luxury, 
Unless it did, though fearfully, espy 



END TM I ON »» 

A hope beyond the shadow of a dream. 

My sayings will the less obscured seem 

When I have told thee how my waking sight 

Has made me scruple whether that same night 

Was pass'd in dreaming. Hearken, sweet Pecnml 

Beyond the matron-temple of Latona, 

Which we should see but for these darkening 

boughs, 
Lies a deep hollow, from whose ragged brows 
Bushes and trees do lean all round athwart, 
And meet so nearly, that with wings outraught, 
And spreaded tail, a vulture could not glide 
Past them, but he must brush on every side. 
Some raoulder'd steps lead into this cool cell, 
Far as the slabbed margin of a well, 
Whose patient level peeps its crystal eye 
Right upward, through the bushes, to the sky. 
Oft have I brought thee' flowers, on their stalks set 
Like vestal primroses, but dark velvet 
Edges them round, and they have golden pits : 
'Twas there I got them, from the gaps and slits 
In a mossy stone, that sometimes was my beat, 
When all above was faint with mid-day heat. 
And there in strife no burning thoughts to heed, 
I'd bubble up the water through a reed ; 
So reaching back to boyhood : make me ships 
Of moulted feathers, touchwood, alder chips, 
With leaves stuck in them ; and the Neptune be 
Of their petty ocean. Oftener, heavily, 
When lovelorn hours had left me less a child, 
I sat contemplating the figures wild 
Of o'er-head clouds melting the mirror through. 
Upon a day, while thus I watch'd, by flew 
A cloudy Cupid, with his bow and quiver ; 
So plainly character'd, no breeze would shiver 
The happy chance : so happy, I was fain 
To follow it upon the open plain, 
And, therefore, was just going ; when, behold! 



•0 ENDYMION. 



L wonder, fair as any I have told — 

The same bright face I tasted in my sleep, 

Smiling in the clear well. My heart did leap 

Through the cool depth. — It moved as if to flee - 

I started up, when lo ! refreshfully, 

There came upon my face, in plenteous showers, 

Dew-drops, and dewy buds, and leaves, and flowery 

Wrapping all objects from my smother'd sight, 

Bathing my spirit in a new delight. 

Ay, such a breathless honey-feel of bliss 

Alone preserved me from the drear abyss 

Of death, for the fair form had gone again. 

Pleasure is oft a visitant ; but pain 

Clings cruelly to us, like the gnawing sloth 

On the deer's tender haunches :. late, and loth, 

'Tis scared away by slow returning pleasure. 

How sickening, how dark the dreadful leisure 

Of weary days, made deeper exquisite, 

Bv a foreknowledge of unslumbrous night ! 

Like sorrow came upon me, heavier still, 

Than when I wander'd from the poppy hill : 

And a whole age of lingering moments crept 

Sluggishly by, ere more" contentment swept 

Away at once the deadly yellow spleen. 

Yes, thrice have I this fair enchantment seen, 

Once more been tortured with renewed life. 

When last the wintry gusts gave over strife 

With the conquering sun of spring, and left tM 

skies 
Warm and serene, but yet with moisten'd eje9 
In pity of the shatter'd infant buds, — 
That time thou didst adorn, with amber studs, 
My hunting-cap, because I laugh'd and smiled, 
Chatted with thee, and many days exiled 
All torment from my breast ; — 'twas even thea 
Straying about, yet coop'd up in the den 
Of helpless discontent, — hurling my lance 
From place to place, and following at chance, 



ENDYM10N. %\ 

At last, by hap, through some young trees it struck 

And, plashing among bedded pebbles, stuck 
In the middle of a brook, — whose silver ramble 
Down twenty little falls through reeds and bramble 
Tracing along, it brought me to a cave, 
Whence it ran brightly forth, and white did lave 
The nether sides of mossy stones and rock, — 
Mong which it gurgled blithe adieus, to mock 
Its own sweet grief at parting. Overhead, 
Hung a lush screen of drooping weeds, and spread 
Thick, as to curtain up some wood-nymph's home. 

Ah ! impious mortal, whither do I roam I ' 
Said I, low-voiced : ' Ah, whither ! Tis the grot 
Of Proserpine, when Hell, obscure and hot, 
Doth her resign : and where her tender hands 
She dabbles on the cool and sluicy sands: 
Or 'tis the cell of Echo, where she sits, ^ 
And babbles thorough silence, till her wits 
Are gone in tender madness, and anon, 
Faints into sleep, with many a dying tone 
Of sadness. O that she would take my vows, 
And breathe them sighingly among the boughs, 
To sue her gentle ears for whose fair head, 
Daily, I pluck sweet flowerets from their bed, 
And weave them dyingly — send honey-whispSlS 
Round every leaf, that all those gentle lispers 
M.ay sigh my love unto her pitying ! 
charitable Echo ! hear, and sing 
Tl.is ditty to her ! — tell her'— So I sta/d 
My foolish tongue, and listening, half afraid, 
Sfrod stupefied with my own empty folly, 
Anl blushing for the freaks of melancholy. 
Sa! ; tears were coming, when I heard my 
Meat fondly lipp'd, and then these accents 

E idymion ! the cave is secreter 
Thin the isle of Delos. Echo hence shall stir 
No lighs but sigh- warm kisses, or light noise 
Of hy combing hand, the while it travelling ckpt 



63 END Y Ml ON. 

And trembles through my labyrinthine hair.' 
At that oppressd, I hurried in. — Ah ! where 
Are those swift moments ! Whither are they fled 
I'll smile no more, Peona ; nor will wed 
Sorrow, the way to death ; but patiently 
Bear up against it : so farewell, sad sigh ; 
And come instead demurest meditation, 
To occupy me wholly, and to fashion 
My pilgrimage for the world's dusky brir.k. 
No more will I count over, link by link, 
My chain of grief: no longer strive to find 
A half-forgetfulness in mountain wind 
Blustering about my ears: ay, thou shalt see, 
Dearest of sisters, what my life shall be ; 
What a calm round of hours shall make my dayi 
There is a paly flame of hope that plays 
Where'er I look : but yet, I'll say 'tis nought — 
And here I bid it die. Have not I caught, 
Already, a more healthy countenance ? 
By this the sun is setting ; we may chance 
Meet some of our near-dwellers wfth my car." 

This said, he rose, faint-smiling, like a star 
Through autumn mists, and took Peona 's hand! 
They stept into the boat, and launch'd from land 



book n. 

O sovereign power of love ! O grief ! O balm f 
All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm, 
And shadowy, through the mist of passed yean ; 
For others, good or bad, hatred and tears 
Have become indolent ; but touching thine, 
One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine, 
One kiss brings honey-dew from buried day* 



ENDYMION. 68 

The woes of Troy, towers smothering o'er their 

blaze, 
Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades, 
Struggling, and blood, and shrieks — all dimly fade* 
Into some backward corner of the brain ; 
Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain 
The close of Tro'ilus and Cressid sweet. 
Hence, pageant history ! hence, gilded cheat 
Swart planet in the universe of deeds ! 
Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds 
Along the pebbled shore of memory ! 
Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be 
Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified. 
To goodly vessels ; many a sail of pride, 
And golden-keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry. _ 
But wherefore this ? What care, though owl did b> 
About the great Athenian admiral's mast ? 
What care, though striding Alexander past 
The Indus with his Macedonian numbers ? 
Though old Ulysses tortured from his slumbers ^ 
The glutted Cyclops, what care ? — Juliet leanraf 
Amid her window-flowers, — sighing, — weauing 
Tenderly her fancy from its maiden snow, 
Doth more avail than these : the silver flow 
Of Hero's tears, the swoon of Imogen, 
Fair Pastorella in the bandit's den, 
Are things to brood on with more ardency 
Than the death-day of empires. Fearfully 
Must such conviction come upon his head, 
Who, thus far, discontent, has dared to tread, 
Without one muse's smile, or kind behest, 
The path of love and poesy. But rest, 
In chafing restlessness, is yet more drear 
Than to be crush'd, in striving to uprear 
Love's standard on the battlements of song. 
So once more days and nights aid me along; 
Like legion'd soldiers. 



g4 ENDTMION. 

Brain-sick shepherd-primx 
What promise hast thou faithful guarded since 
The day of sacrifice ? Or, have new sorrows 
Come with the constant dawn upon thy morrows 
Alas ! 'tis his old grief. For many days, 
Has he been wandering in uncertain ways : 
Through wilderness, and woods of mossed oaks; 
Counting his woe-worn minutes, by the strokes 
Of the lone wood-cutter ; and listening still, 
Hour after hour, to each lush-leaved rill. 
Now he is sitting by a shady spring, ^ 
And elbow-deep with feverous fingering 
Stems the upbursting cold : a wild rose-tree 
Pavilions him in bloom, and he doth see 
A bud which snares his fancy : lo ! but now 
He plucks it, dips its stalk in the water : how 
It swells, it buds, it flowers beneath his sight 
And, in the middle, there is softly pight 
A golden butterfly ; upon whose wings 
There must be surely character^ strange things 
For with wide eye he wonders, and smiles oft. 

Lightly this little herald flew aloft, 
Follow'd by glad Endymion's clasped hands: 
Onward it flies. From languor's sullen bands 
His limbs are loosed, and eager, on he hies 
Dazzled to trace it in the sunny skies. 
It seeni'd he flew, the way so easy was ; 
And like a new-born spirit did he pass 
Through the greon evening quiet in the sun, 
O'er many a heath, through many a woodland dun 
Through buiied paths, where sleepy twilight dreams 
The summer time away. One track unseams 
A wooded cleft, and, far away, the blue 
Of ocean fades upon him ; thers anew, 
He sinks adown a solitary glen, 
Where there was never sound of mortal men, 
Baving, perhaps, some snow-light cadences 



ENDYMION. 

Melting to silence, when upon the breeze 
Some holy bark let forth an anthem sweet, 
To cheer itself to Delphi. Still his feet 
Went swift beneath the merry-winged guide* 
Until it reach'd a, splashing fountain's side 
That, near a cavern's mouth, for ever pour'd 
Unto the temperate air ; then high it soar'd, 
And, downward, suddenly began to dip, 
As if, athirst with so much toil, 'twould sip 
The crystal spout-head : so it did, with touch 
Most delicate, as though afraid to smutch, 
Even with mealy gold, the waters clear. 
But, at that very touch, to disappear 
So fairy-quick, was strange ! Bewildered, 
Endymion sought around, and shook each bed 
Of covert flowers in vain ; and then he flung 
Himself along the grass. What gentle tongue* 
What whisperer, disturb'd his gloomy rest ? 
It was a nymph uprisen to the breast 
In the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood 
'Mong lilies, like the youngest of the brood. 
To him her dripping hand she softly kist, 
And anxiously began to plait and twist 
Her ringlets round her fingers, saying : " Youtj 
Too long, alas, hast thou starved on the ruth, 
The bitterness of love : too long indeed, 
Seeing thou art so gentle. Could I weed 
Thy soui of care, by heavens, I would offer 
All the bright riches of my crystal coffer 
To Amphitrite ; all my clear-eyed fish, 
Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish, 
Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze ; 
Yea, or my veined pebble-floor that draws 
A virgin-light to the deep ; mj grotto-sands, 
Tawny and gold, oozed slowly from far Lands 
By my diligent springs ; my level lilie^ shelly 
My charming-rod, my potent river spoils ; 
Tea, every thing, even to the pearly cup 
6 



66 END TM I ON. 

Meander gave me, — for T bubbled up 

To fainting creatures in a desert wild. 

But woe is me, I am but as a child 

To gladden thee ; and all I dare to say, 

Is, that I pity thee ; that on this day 

I've been thy guide ; that thou must wander fat 

In other regions, past the scanty bar 

To mortal steps, before thou canst be ta'en 

From every wasting sigh, from every pain, 

Into the gentle bosom of thy love. 

Why it is thus, one knows in heaven above : 

But, a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewell ! 

I have a ditty for my hollow cell." 

Hereat she vanish'd from Endymion's gaze, 
Who brooded o'er the water in amaze : 
The dashing fount pour'd on, and where its pool 
Lay, half asleep, in grass and rushes cool, 
Quick waterflies and gnats were sporting still, 
And fish were dimpling, as if good nor ill 
Had fallen out that hour. The wanderer, 
Holding his forehead, to keep otf the burr 
Of smothering fancies, patiently sat down ; 
And, while beneath the evening's sleepy frown 
Glowworms began to trim their starry lamps. 
Thus breathed he to himself: " Whoso encamp 
To take a fancied city of delight, 
O what a wretch is he ! and when 'tis his, 
After long toil and travelling, to miss 
The kernel of his hopes, how more than vile i 
Yet, for him there's refreshment even in toil 
Another city doth he set about, 
Free from the smallest pebble-bead of doubt 
That he will seize on trickling honey-combs : 
Alas ! he finds them dry ; and then he foamt 
And onward to another city speeds. 
But this is human life : the war, the deeds, 
The disappointment, the anxiety, 



ENDYMION. ft 

Imagination's struggles, far and nigh, 

All human ; bearing in themselves this good, 

That they are still the air, the subtle food, 

To make us feel existence, and to show 

How quiet death is. , Where soil is, men grow, 

Wnether to weeds or flowers ; but for me, 

There is no depth to strike in : I can see 

Nought earthly worth my compassing ; so stand 

Upon a misty, jutting head of land — 

Alone ? No, no ; and by the Orphean lute, 

When mad Eurydice is listening to 't, 

I'd rather stand upon this misty peak, 

With not a thing to sigh for, or to seek, 

But the soft shadow of my thrice-seen love, 

Than be — I care not what. O meekest dove ^ 

Of heaven ! O Cynthia, ten-times bright and fair ! 

From thy blue throne, now filling all the^ air, 

Glance but one little beam of temper'd light 

Into my bosom, that the dreadful might 

And tyranny of love be somewhat scared ! 

Yet do not so, sweet queen ; one torment spared, 

Would give a pang to jealous misery, 

Worse than the torment's self: but rather tie 

Large wings upon my shoulders, and point out 

My love's far dwelling. Though the playful root 

Of Cupids shun thee, too divine art thou, 

Too keen in beauty, for thy silver prow 

Not to have dipp'd in love's most gentle stream. 

O be propitious, nor severely deem 

My madness impious ; for, by all the stars 

That tend thy bidding, I do think the bars 

That kept my spirit in are burst — that I 

Am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky ! 

How beautiful thou art ! The workl how deep ! 

How tremulous-dazzlingly the wheels sweep 

Around ttair axle ! Then these gleaming rem 

4ow lithe ! When this thy chariot attains 

its airy goal, haply some bower veils 



18 END YM J ON 

Those twilight eyes ? Those eyes ! — my spirit 

fails ; 
Dear goddess, help ! or the wide gaping air 
Will gulf me — help ! " — At this, with madden'd 

stare, 
And lifted hands, and trembling lips, he stood ; 
Like old Deucalion mountain'd o'er the flood, 
Or blind Orion hungry for the morn. 
And, but from the deep cavern there was borne 
A voice, he had been froze to senseless stone ; 
Nor sigh of his, nor plaint, nor passion'd moan 
Had more been heard. Thus swell'd it forth 

" Descend, 
Young mountaineer ! descend where alleys bend 
Into the sparry hollows of the world ! 
Oft hast thou seen bolts of the thunder hurl'd 
As from thy threshold ; day by day hast been 
A little lower than the chilly sheen 
Of icy pinnacles, and dipp'dst thine arms 
Into the deadening ether that still charms 
Their marble being : now, as deep profound 
As those are high, descend 1 He ne'er is crown'd 
With immortality, who fears to follow 
Where airy voices lead : so through the hollow, 
The silent mysteries of earth, descend ! " 

He heard but the last words, nor could contend 
One moment in reflection : for he fled 
Into the fearful deep, to hide his head 
From the clear moon, the trees, and coming mad- 
ness. 

'Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sadnese ; 
Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite 
To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light, 
The region ; nor bright, nor sombre wholly, 
But mingled up ; a gleaming melancholy ; 
A dusky empire and its diadems ; 



EiJDYMION. 6* 

One faint eternal eventide of gems. 

Ay, millions sparkled on a vein of gold, 

Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told. 

With all its lines abrupt and angular : 

Out-shooting sometimes, like a meteor star. 

Through a vast antre ; then the metal woof 

Like vulcan's rainbow, with some monstrous roof 

Curves hugely : now, far in the deep abyss, 

It seems an angry lightning, and doth hiss 

Fancy into belief: anon it leads 

Through winding passages, where sameness breeds 

Vexing conceptions of some sudden change ; 

Whether to silver grots, or giant range 

Of sapphire columns, or fantastic bridge 

Athwart a flood of crystal. On a ridge 

Now fareth he, that o'er the vast beneath 

Towers like an ocean-cliff, and whence he seeth 

A hundred waterfalls, whose voices come 

But as the murmuring surge. Chilly and numb 

His bosom grew, when first he, far away, 

Described an orbed diamond, set to fray 

Old Darkness from his throne : 'twas like the sun 

Uprisen o'er chaos : and with such a stun 

Came the amazement, that, absorb'd in it, 

He saw not fiercer wonders — past the wit 

Of any spirit to tell, but one of those 

Who, when this planet's sphering time doth close, 

Will be its high remembrancers : who they ? 

The mighty ones who have made eternal day 

For Greece and England. While astonishment 

With deep-drawn sighs was quieting, he went 

Into a marble gallery, passing through 

A mimic temple, so complete an 1 true 

In sacred custom, that he well nigh fear'd 

To search it inwards ; whence far off appeared* 

Through a long pillar'd vista, a fair shrine, 

And, just beyond, on light tiptoe divine, 

A quiverM Dian. Stepping awfully, 



W EtfDYMTON. 

The youth approach'd ; oft turning his veil'd eye 

Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old : 

And, when more near against the marble cold 

He had touch'd his forehead, he began to thread 

All courts and passages, where silence dead, 

Roused by his whispering footsteps, murmur'd faint 

And long he traversed to and fro, to acquaint 

Himself with every mystery, and awe ; 

Till, weary, he sat down before the maw 

Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim, 

To wild uncertainty and shadows grim. 

There, when new wonders ceased to float before, 

And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sow 

The journey homeward to habitual self! 

A mad pursuing of the fog-born elf, 

Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-brier, 

Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire, 

Into the bosom of a hated thing. 

What misery most drowningly doth sing 
In lone Endymkm's ear, now he has caught 
The goal of consciousness ? Ah, 'tis the thought, 
The deadly feel of solitude : for lo ! 
He cannot see the heavens, nor the flow 
Of rivers, nor hill-flowers running wild 
In pink and purple chequer, nor, up-piled, 
The cloudy rack slow journeying in the west, 
Like herded elephants ; nor felt, nor prest 
Cool grass, nor tasted the fresh slumberous air; 
But far from such companionship to wear 
An unknown time, surcharged with grief, away, 
Was now his lot. And must he patient stay, 
Tracing fantastic figures with his spear ? 
"No ! " exclaim'd be, " why should I tarry here ? " 
No ! loudly echoed times innumerable. 
At which he straightway started, ana 'gan teD 
His paces back into the temple's chief; 
Warming and glowing strong in the belief 



END? MI ON. Tt 

Of help from Dian : so that when again 

He caught her airy form, thus did he plain, 

Moving more near the while : " O Haunter chaste 

Of river sides, and woods, and heathy waste, 

Where with thy silver bow and arrows keen 

Art thou now forested ? O woodland Queen, 

What smoothest air thy smoother forehead wooi ? 

Where dost thou listen to the wide halloos 

Of thy disparted nymphs ? Through what dark tree 

Glimmers thy crescent ? Wheresoe'er it be, 

•Tis in the breath of heaven : thou dost taste 

Freedom as none can taste it, nor dost waste 

Thy loveliness in dismal elements ; 

But, finding in our green earth sweet contents, 

There livest blissfully. Ah, if to thee 

It feels Elysian, how rich to me, 

An exiled mortal, sounds its pleasant name! 

Within my breast there lives a choking flame — 

O let me cool it zephyr-boughs among ! 

A homeward fever parches up my tongue — 

O let me slake it at the running springs ! 

Upon my ear a noisy nothing rings — 

O let me once more hear the linnet's note ! 

Before mine eyes thick films and shadows float — 

O let me 'noint them with the heaven's light ! 

Dost thou now lave thy feet and ankles white ? 

O think how sweet to me the freshening sluice ! 

Dost thou now please thy thirst with berry-juice J 

O think how this dry palate would rejoice ! 

If in soft slumber thou dost hear my voice, 

O think how I should love a bed of flowers ! — 

Young goddess ! let me see my native bowers! 

Deliver me from this rapacious deep ! n 

Thus ending loudly, as he would o'erleap 
His destiny, alert he stood : but when 
Obstinate silence came heavily again, 
Feeling about for its old couch of space 



J2 ENDYMION. 

Arid airy cradle, lowly bow'd his face, 
Desponding, o'er the marble floor's cold thrill. 
But 'twas not long; for, sweeter than the rill 
To its old channel, or a swollen tide 
To margin sallows, were the leaves he spied, 
And flowers, and wreaths, and ready myrtle crown* 
Upheaping through the slab : refreshment drowns 
itself, and strives its own delights to hide — 
Nor in one spot alone ; the floral pride 
In a long whispering birth enchanted grew 
Before his footsteps ; as when heaved anew 
Old ocean rolls a lengthen'd wave to the shore, 
Down whose green back the short-lived foam, ail 

hoar, 
Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence. 

Increasing still in heart, and pleasant sense, 
Upon his fairy journey on he hastes ; 
So anxious for the end, he scarcely wastes 
One moment with his hand among the sweets * 
Onward he goes — he stops — his bosom beats 
As plainly in his ear as the faint charm 
Of which the throbs were born. This still alarm, 
This sleepy music, forced him walk tiptoe : 
For it came more softly than the east could blow 
Arion's magic to the Atlantic isles ; 
Or than the west, made jealous by the smiles 
Of throned Apollo, could breathe back the lyre 
To seas Ionian and Tyrian. 

O did he ever live, that lonely man, 
Who loved — and music slew not ? 'Tis the pes* 
Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest ; 
That things of delicate and tenderest worth 
Are swallow'd all, and made a seared dearth, 
By one consuming flame : it doth immerse 
And suffocate true blessings in a curse. 
Half-happy, by comparison of bliss, 



ENDTMION. 

(s miserable. 'Twas even s* with tnis 
Oew-dropping melody, in the Carian's ear; 
First heaven, then hell, and then forgotten clear 
Vanish'd in elemental passion. 

And down some swart abysm he had gone, 
Had not a heavenly guide benignant led 
To where thick myrtle branches, 'gainst his head 
Brushing, awaken'd : then the sounds again 
Went noiseless as a passing noontide rain 
Over a bower, where little space he stood , 
For as the sunset peeps into a wood, 
So saw he panting light, and towards it went 
Through winding alleys ; and lo, wonderment I 
Upon soft verdure saw, one here, one there, 
Cupids a-slumbering on their pinions fair. 

After a thousand mazes overgone, 
At last, with sudden step, he came upon 
A chamber, myrtle-wall'd, embower'd high, 
Full of light, incense, tender minstrelsy, 
And more of beautiful and strange beside : 
For on a silken couch of rosy pride, 
In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth 
Of fondest beauty ; fonder, in fair sooth, 
Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach 
And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach, 
Or ripe October's faded marigolds, 
Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds — 
Not hiding up an Apollonian curve 
Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve 
Of knee from knee, nor ankles pointing light ; 
But rather, giving them to the fill'd sight 
Officiously. Side way his face reposed 
On one white arm, and tenderly unclosed, 
By tenderest pressure, a faint damask mouth 
To slumbery pout ; just as the morning south 
Disparts a dew-lipp'd rose. Above his head. 



74 END YM I ON. 

Four lily stalks did their white honours wed 
To make a coronal ; and round him grew 
All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue# 
Together intertwined and trammell'd fresh # 
The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh, 
Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine, 
Of velvet-leaves and bugle-blooms divine ; 
Convolvulus in streaked vases flush ; 
The creeper, mellowing for an autumn blush; 
And virgin's bower, trailing airily ; 
With others of the sisterhood. Hard by, 
Stood serene Cupids watching silently. 
One, kneeling to a lyre, touch'd the strings, 
Muffling to death the pathos with his wings* 
And, ever and anon, uprose to look 
At the youth's slumber ; while another took 
A willow bough, distilling odorous dew, 
And shook it on his hair ; another flew 
In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise 
Rain'd violets upon his sleeping eyes. 

At these enchantments, and yet many more, 
The breathless Latmian wonder'd o'er and o'er ; 
Until impatient in embarrassment, 
He forthright pass'd, and lightly treading went 
To that same feather'd lyrist, who straightway, 
Smiling, thus whisper'd : " Though from upper d»« 
Thou art a wanderer, and thy presence here 
Might seem unholy, be of happy cheer ! 
For 'tis the nicest touch of human honour, 
When some ethereal and high-favouring donor 
Presents immortal bowers to mortal sense ; 
As now 'tis done to thee, Endymion. Hence 
Was I in no wise startled. So recline 
Upon these living flowers. Here is wine, 
Alive with sparkles — never, I aver, 
Since Ariadne was a vintager, 
So fool a purple : taste these juicy pears. 



ENDTMION. 71 

Sent me by sad Vertumnus, when his fears 

Were high about Pomona : here is cream, 

Deepening to richness from a snowy gleam ; 

Sweeter than that nurse Amalthr a skimm'd 

For the boy Jupiter : and here, undimm'd 

By any touch, a bunch of blooming plums 

Ready to melt between an infant's gums : 

And here is manna piek'd from Syrian trees, 

In starlight, by the three Hesperides. 

Feast on, and meanwhile I will let thee know 

Of all these things around us." He did so, 

Still brooding o'er the cadence of his lyre ; 

And thus : " I need not any hearing tire 

By telling how the sea-born goddess pined 

For a mortal youth, and how she strove to bind 

Him all in all unto her doating self. 

Who would not be so prison'd ? but, fond elfc 

He was content to let her amorous plea 

Faint through his careless arms': content to see 

An unseized heaven dying at his feet ; 

Content, O fool ! to make a cold retreat, 

When on the pleasant grass such love, lovelorn, 

Lay sorrowing : when every tear was born 

Of diverse passion ; when her lips and eyes 

Were closed in sullen moisture, and quick sighs 

Came vex'd and pettish through her nostrils small 

Hush ! no exclaim — yet, justly might'st thou call 

Curses upon his head. — I was half glad, 

But my poor mistress went distract and mad, 

When the boar tusk'd him : so away she flew 

To Jove's high throne, and by her plainings drew 

Immortal tear-drops down the thunderer's beard ; 

Whereon, it was decreed he should be rear'd 

Each summer-time to life. Lo ! this is he, 

That same Adonis, safe in the privacy 

Of this still region all his winter-sleep 

Ay, sleep ; for when our love-sick queen did weep 

Orer his waned corse, the tremulous shower 



76 ENDi'MlUX. 

HeaPd up the wound, and, with a balmy power, 

Medicined death to a lengthen'd drowsiness: 

The which she fills with visions, and doth dress 

In all this quiet luxury ; and hath set 

Us young immortals, without any let, 

To watch his slumber through. 'Tis well nig! 

pass'd, 
Even to a moment's filling up, and fast 
She scuds with summer breezes, to pant through 
The first long kiss, warm firstling, to renew 
Erabower'd sports in Cytherea's isle. 
Look, how those winged listeners all this while 
Stand anxious : see 1 behold ! " — This clamant word 
Broke through the careful silence ; for they heard 
A rustling noise of leaves, and out there flutter d 
Pigeons and doves : Adonis something mutter'd, 
The while one hand, that erst upon his thigh 
Lay dormant, moved convulsed and gradually 
Up to his forehead. Then there was a hum 
Of sudden voices, echoing, " Come ! come ! 
Arise ! awake ! Clear summer has forth walk'd 
Unto the clover-sward, and she has talk'd 
Full soothingly to every nested finch : 
Rise, Cupids ! or we'll give the bluebell pinch 
To your dimpled arms. Once more sweet life bf>» 

At this, from every side they hurried in, j 

Rubbing theii sleepy eyes with lazy wrists, 
And doubling overhead their little fists 
In backward yawns. But all were soon alive : 
For as delicious wine doth, sparkling, dive ( 

. In nectar'd clouds and curls through water fair, \ 
So from the arbour roof down swelPd an air 
Odorous and enlivening ; making all 
To laugh, and play, and sing, and loudly call 
For their sweet queen : when lo ! the wreathed 

green 
Disparted, and far upward could be seen 



ENDYMION. 77 

Blue heaven, and a silver car. air-b^rne 
Whose silent wfaesk, fresx* \ret fro™ clouds of mora. 
Spun off a drizzling dew, — which falling chill 
On soil Adonis' shoulders, made Lkai still 
Nestle and turn uneasily about- 
Soon were the white doves plain, with necke 

stretch'd out, 
And silken traces lighten'd in descent : 
And soon, returning from love's banishment, 
Queen Venus leaning downward open-arm'd 
Her shadow fell upon his breast, and charm'c 
A tumult to his heart, and a new life 
Into his eyes. Ah, miserable strife, 
But for her comforting! unhappy sight, 
But meeting her blue orbs ! Who, who can write 
Of these-first minutes ? The unchariest muse 
To embracements warm as theirs makes coy excuse, 

O it has ruffled every spirit there, 
Saving love's self, who stands superb to share 
The general gladness : awfully he stands ; 
A sovereign quell is in his waving hands ; 
No sight can bear the lightning of his bow ; 
His quiver is mysterious, none can know 
What themselves think of it ; from forth his eyes 
There darts strange light of varied hues and dyei 
± scowl is sometimes on his brow, but who 
Look full upon it feel anon the blue 
Of his fair eyes run liquid through their souls. 
Endymion fee\s it, and no more controls 
The burning prayer within him ; so, bent low, 
He Imd begun a plaining of his woe. 
But Venus, bending forward, said : " My child, 
Favour this gentle youth ; his days are wild 
With love — he — but alas ! too well I see 
Thou know'st the deepness of his misery 
Ah ! smile not so, my son : I tell thee true, 
That when through heavy hours I used to roe 



78 ENDYMIOjs. 

The endless sleep of this new-born Adon', 

This stranger aye I pitied. For upon 

A dreary morning once I fled away 

Into the breezy clouds, to weep and pray 

For this my love : for vexing Mars had teased 

Me even to tears : thence, when a little eased, 

Down-looking, vacant, through a hazy wood, 

I saw this youth as he despairing stood : 

Those same dark curls blown vagrant in the wind 

Those same full fringed lids a constant blind 

Over his sullen eyes: I saw him throw 

Himself on wither'd leaves, even as though 

Death had come sudden ; for no jot he moved, 

Yet mutter'd wildly. I could hear he loved 

&ome fair immortal, and that his embrace 

Had zoned her through the night. There is nt 

trace 
Of this in heaven : I have mark'd each cheek, 
And find it is the vainest thing to seek ; 
And that of all things 'tis kept secretest. 
Endymion ! one day thou wilt be blest : 
So still obey the guiding hand that fends 
Thee safely through these wonders for sweet ends. 
*Tis a concealment needful in extreme ; 
And if I guess'd not so, the sunny beam 
Thou shouldst mount up to with me. Now adieu 
Here must we leave thee." — At these words up fleif 
The impatient doves, up rose the floating car, 
Up went the hum celestial. High afar 
The Latmain saw them minish into nought ; 
And, when all were clear vanish'd, still he caught 
A vivid lightning from that dreadful bow. 
When all was darken'd, with JEtnean throe 
The earth closed — gave a solitary moan — 
And left him once again in twilight lone. 

He did not rave, he did not stare aghast, 
For all those visions were o'ergone, and past, 



END TM 1 ON. 7$ 

And he in loneliness : be felt assured 
Of happy times, when all he had endured 
Would seem a feather to the mighty prize. 
So, with unusual gladness, on he hies 
Through caves, and palaces of mottled ore, 
Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquois floor; 
Black polish'd porticos of awful shade, 
And, at the last, a diamond balustrade, 
Leading afar past wild magnificence. 
Spiral through ruggedest loopholes, and thence 
Stretching across a void, then guiding o'er 
Enormous chasms, where all foam and roar, 
Streams subterranean tease their granite beds ; 
Then heighten'd just above the silvery heads 
Of a thousand fountains, so that he could dash 
The waters with his spear ; but at the splash, 
Done heedlessly, those spouting columns rose 
Sudden a poplar's height, and 'gan to inclose 
His diamond path with fretwork streaming round 
Alike, and dazzling cool, and with a sound, 
Haply, like dolphin tumults, when sweet shells 
Welcome the float of Thetis. Long he dwells 
On this delight ; for, every minute's space, 
The streams with changed magic interlace : 
Sometimes like delicatest lattices, 
Cover'd with crystal vines ; then weeping trees, 
Moving about as in a gentle wind, 
Which, in a wink, to watery gauze refined, 
Pour'd into shapes of curtain'd canopies, 
Spangled, and rich with liquid broideries 
Of flowers, peacocks, swans, and naiads fair. 
Swifter than lightning went these wonders rare ; 
And then the water, into stubborn streams 
Collecting, mimick'd the wrought oaken beams, 
Pillars, and frieze, and high fantastic roof, 
Of those dusk places in times far aloof 
Cathedrals call'd. He bade a loath farewell 
To these founts Protean, passing gulf, and dell* 



80 ENDYMION. 

And torrent, and ten thousand jutting shapes, 
Half seen through deepest gloom, and grisly gapes 
Blackening on every side, and overhead 
A vaulted dome like heaven's far bespread 
With starlight gems : ay, all so huge and strange 
The solitary felt a hurried change 
Working within him into something dreary, — 
Vex'd like a morning eagle, lost and weary, 
And purblind amid foggy midnight wolds. 
But he revives at once : for who beholds 
New sudden things, nor casts his mental slough ? 
Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below, 
Came mother Cybele ! alone — alone — 
In sombre chariot ; dark foldings thrown 
About her majesty, and front death-pale, 
With turrets crown'd. Four maned lions hale 
Thw sluggish wheels ; solemn their toothed maws, 
Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws 
Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails 
Cowering their tawny brushes. Silent sails 
This shadowy queen athwart, and faints away 
In another gloomy arch. 

Wherefore delay, 
Young traveller, in such a mournful place ? 
Art thou wayworn, or canst not further trace 
The diamond path ? And does it indeed end 
Abrupt in middle air ? Yet earthward bend 
Thy forehead, and to Jupiter cloud-borne 
Call ardently ! He was indeed wayworn ; 
Abrupt, in middle air, his way was lost ; 
To cloud-borne Jove he bow'd, and there crost 
Towards him a large eagle, 'twixt whose wings, 
Without one impious word, himself he flings, 
Committed to the darkness and the gloom : 
Down, down, uncertain to what pleasant doom, 
Swift as a fathoming plummet down he fell 
Through unknown things ; till exhaled asphodeL 



EN DY MI ON. 81 

Ana rose, with spicy farmings interbreathed, 
Came swelling forth where little caves were 

wreathed 
So thick with leaves and mosses, that they seem'd 
Large honeyed bs of green, and freshly teem'd 
With airs leiicious. In the greenest nook 
The eagle landed him, and farewell took. 

It was a jasmine bower, all bestrown 
With golden moss. His every sense had grown 
Ethereal for pleasure ; 'bove his head 
Flew a delight half-graspable ; his tread 
Was Hesperean ; to his capable ears 
Silence was music from the holy spheres ; 
A dewy luxury was in his eyes ; 
The little flowers felt his pleasant- °i'ghs 
And stirr'd them faintly. Veruant cave and cell 
He wander'd through, oft wondering at such swell 
Of sudden exaltation : but, "Alas ! " 
Said he, " will all this gush of feeling pass 
Away in solitude ? And must they wane, 
Like melodies upon a sandy plain, 
Without an echo ? Then shall I be left 
So sad, so melancholy, so bereft ! 
Yet still I feel immortal i O my love, 
My breath of life, where art thou ? High above, 
Dancing before the morning gates of heaven ? 
Or keeping watch among those starry seven, 
Old Atlas' children ? Art a maid of the waters, 
Oae of shell-windisg Triton's bright-hair'd daugh 

ters ? 
Or art, impossible ! a nymph of Dian's, 
Weaving a coronal of tender scions 
For very idleness ? Where'er thou art, 
Methinks it how is at my will tc start 
Into thine arms ; to scare Aurora's train, 
And snatch thee from the morning ; o'er the 
To scud like a wild bird, and take thee off 
6 



8$ END YM J ON 

From thy sea-foamy cradle ; or to doff 

Thy shepherd vest, and woo thee 'mid fresh leatet 

No, no, too eagerly my soul deceives 

Its powerless self: I know this cannot be. 

O let me then by some sweet dr^ming flee 

To her entrancements : hither sle« h "hile 1 

Hither most gentle sleep ! and soothing toil 

For some few hours the coming solitude." 

Thus spake he, and that moment felt endued 
With power to dream deliciously ; so wound 
Through a dim passage, searching till he found 
The smoothest mossy bed and deepest, where 
He threw himself, and just into the air 
Stretching his indolent arms, he took, O bliss ! 
A naked waist : " Fair Cupid, whence is this ? n 
A well-known . ; ' ^ ~igh'd, " Sweetest, here am I c 
At which soft ravishment, with doting cry 
They trembled to each other. — Helicon ! 
O fountain^ hill ! Old Homer's Helicon 1 
That thou wouldst spout a little streamlet o'er 
These sorry pages ; then the verse would soar 
And sing above this gentle pair, like lark 
Over his nested young : but all is dark 
Around thine aged top, and thy clear fount 
Exhales in mists to heaven. Ay, the count 
Of mighty Poets is made up ; the scroll 
Is folded by the Muses ; the bright roll 
Is in Apollo's hand : our dazed eyes 
Have seen a new tinge in the western skies : 
The world has done its duty. Yet, oh yet, 
Although the sun of poesy is set, 
These lovers did embrace, and we must weep 
That there is no old power left to steep 
A quill immortal in their joyous tears. 
Long time in silence did their anxious fears 
Question that thus it was; long time they lay 
Fondling and kissing every doubt away ; 



END TM 1 ON. 81 

Long time ere soft caressing sobs began 

To mellow into words, and then there ran 

Two bubbling springs of talk from their sweet lipt, 

* O known Unknown ! from whom my being sips 

Such darling essence, wherefore may I not 

Be ever in these arms ? in this sweet spot 

Pillow my chin for ever ? ever press 

These toying hands and kiss their smooth excess? 

Why not for ever and for ever feel 

That breath about my eyes ? Ah, thou wilt steal 

Away from me again, indeed, indeed — 

Thou wilt be gone away, and wilt not heed 

My lonely madness. Speak, my kindest fair ! 

Is — is it to be so ? No ! Who will dare 

To pluck thee from me ? And, of thine owi 

will, 
Full well I feel thou wouldst not leave me. Still 
Let me entwine thee surer, surer — now 
How can we part ? Elysium ! Who art thou ? 
Who, that thou canst not be for ever here, 
Or lift me with thee to some starry sphere ? 
Enchantress ! tell me by this soft embrace, 
By the most soft complexion of thy face, 
Those lips, O slippery blisses! twinkling e\es, 
And by these tenderest, milky sovereignties — 
These tenderest, and by the nectar-wine, 

The passion " " O loved Ida the divine J 

Endymion ! dearest ! Ah, unhappy me ! 

His soul will 'scape us — O felicity ! 

How he does love me ! His poor temples beat 

To the very tune of love — how sweet, sweety 

sweet ! 
Revive, dear youth, or I shall faint and die ; 
Revive, or these soft hours will hurry by 
In tranced dullness ; speak, and let that spell 
Affright this lethargy ! I cannot quell 
Its heavy pressure, and will press at least 
My lips to thine, that they may richly feast 



84 ENDYMWN. 

Until we taste the life of love again. 

What ! dost thou move ? dost kiss ? O bliss ! O pail 

I love thee, youth, more than I can conceive ; 

And so long absence from thee doth bereave 

My soul of any rest : yet must I hence : 

Yet, can I not to starry eminence 

Uplift thee ; nor for very shame can own 

Myself to thee. Ah, dearest ! do not groan, 

Or thou wilt force me from this secrecy, 

And I must blush in heaven. O that I 

Had done it already ! that the dreadful smiles 

At my lost brightness, my impassion'd wiles, 

Had waned from Olympus' solemn height, 

And from all serious Gods ; that our delight 

Was quite forgotten, save of us alone ! 

And wherefore so ashamed ? 'Tis but to atone 

For endless pleasure, by some coward blushes : 

Yet must I be a coward ! Horror rushes 

Too palpable before me — the sad look 

Of Jove — Minerva's start — no bosom shook 

With awe of purity — no Cupid pinion 

In reverence veiFd — my crystalline dominion 

Half lost, and all old hymns made nullity ! 

But what is this to love ? Oh ! I could fly 

With thee into the ken of heavenly powers, 

80 thou wouldst thus, for many sequent hours, 

Press me so sweetly. Now I swear at once 

That I am wise, that Pallas is a dunce — 

Perhaps her love like mine is but unknown — 

Oh ! I do think that I have been alone 

In chastity ! yes, Pallas has been sighing, 

While every eye saw me my hair uptying 

With fingers cool as aspen leaves. Sweet love ! 

I was as vague as solitary dove, 

Nor knew that nests were built. Now a soft kias — 

Ay, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss, 

An immortality of passion 's thine : 

Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine 



ENDYMION. I 

Of heaven ambrosial ; and we will shade 

Ourselves whole summers by a river glade ; 

And I will tell thee stories of the sky, 

And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy. 

My happy love will over wing all bounds ! 

O let me melt into thee ! let the sounds 

Of our close voices marry at their birth ; 

Let us entwine hoveringly 1 O dearth 

Of human words ! roughness of mortal speech ! 

Lispings empyrean will I sometimes teach 

Thine honey'd tongue — lute-breathings which 

gasp 
To have thee understand, now while I clasp 
Thee thus, and weep for fondness — I am pain'd 
Endymion : woe 1 woe ! is grief contain'd 
In the very deeps of pleasure, my sole life ? " — 
Hereat, with many sobs, her gentle strife 
Melted into a languor. He return'd 
Entranced vows and tears. 

Ye who have yearn'd 
With too much passion, will here stay and pity 
For the mere sake of truth ; as 'tis a ditty 
Not of these days, but long ago 'twas told 
By a cavern wind unto a forest old ; 
And then the forest told it in a dream 
To a sleeping lake, whose cool and level gleam 
A poet caught as he was journeying 
To Phoebus' shrine ; and in it he did fling 
His weary limbs, bathing an hour's space, 
And after, straight in that inspired place 
He sang the story up into the air, 
(Jiving it universal freedom. There 
Has it been ever sounding for those ears 
Whose tips are glowing hot. The legend cheoiv 
Yon sentinel stars ; and he who listens to it 
Must surely be self-doom'd or he will rue it : 
For qrenchless burnings come upon the heart, 



86 END YM ION. 

Made fiercer by a fear lest any part 

Should be engulfed in the eddying wind. 

As much as here is penn'd doth always find 

A resting-place, thus much comes clear and plain \ 

Anon the strange voice is upon the wane — 

And 'tis but echoed from departing sound, 

That the fair visitant at last unwound 

Her gentle limbs, and left the youth asleep. — 

Thus the tradition of the gusty deep. 

Now turn we to our former chroniclers. — 
Endymion awoke, that grief of hers 
Sweet paining on his ear : he sickly guess'd 
How lone he was once more, and sadly press'd 
His empty arms together, hung his head, 
And most forlorn upon that widow'd bed 
Sat silently. Love's madness he had known : 
Often with more than tortured lion's groan 
Moanings had burst from him ; but now that rage 
Had pass'd away : no longer did he wage 
A rough-voiced war against the dooming stars. 
No, he had felt too much for such harsh jars : 
The lyre of his soul JEolian tuned 
Forgot all violence, and but communed 
With melancholy thought : O he had swoon'd 
Drunken from pleasure's nipple ! and his love 
Henceforth was dove-like. — Loth was he to mov« 
From the imprinted couch, and when he did, 
'Twas with slow, languid paces, and face hid 
In muffling hands. So temper'd, out he strayed 
Half seeing visions that might have dismayed 
Alecto's serpents ; ravishments more keen 
Than Hermes' pipe, when anxious he did lean 
Over eclipsing eyes : and at the last 
It was a sounding grotto, vaulted, vast, 
O'erstudded with a thousand, thousand pearls, 
And crimson-mouthed shells with stubborn cnrla, 
Of every shape and size, even to the bulk 



ENDYMION. 8? 

In which whales harbour close, tc brood and sulk 

Against an endless storm. Moreover too, 

Fish-semblances, of green and azure hue, 

Ready to snort their streams. In this cool wonder 

Endymion sat down, and 'gan to ponder 

On all his life : his youth, up to the day 

When 'mid acclaim, and feasts, and garlands gay, 

He stepp'd upon his shepherd throne : the look 

Of his white palace in wild forest nook, 

And all the revels he had lorded there : 

Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair, 

With every friend and fellow-woodlander — 

Pass'd like a dream before him. Then the spur 

Of the old bards to mighty deeds : his plans 

To nurse the golden age 'mong shepherd clans . 

That wondrous night : the great Pan-festival . 

His sister's sorrow ; and his wanderings all, 

Until into the earth's deep maw hc.rush'd : 

Then all its buried magic, till it flush'd 

High with excessive love. " And now," thought he, 

" How long must I remain in jeopardy 

Of blank amazements that amaze no more ? 

Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core, 

All other depths are shallow : essences, 

Once spiritual, are like muddy lees, 

Meant but to fertilize my earthly root, 

And make my branches lift a golden fruit 

Into the bloom of heaven ; other light, 

Though it be quick and sharp enough to blight 

The Olympian eagle's vision, is dark, 

Dark as the parentage of chaos. Hark ! 

My silent thoughts are echoing from these shells ; 

Or they are but the ghosts, the dying swells 

Of noises far away ? — list ! " — Hereupon 

He kept an anxious ear. The humming tone 

Came louder, and behold, there as he lay, 

On either side outgush'd, with misty spray, 

A copious spring ; and both together dash'd 



88 ENDYMION. 

Swift, mad, fantastic round the rocks, and lashd 
Among the conchs and shells of the lofty grot, 
Leaving a trickling dew. At last they shot 
Down from the ceiling's height, pouring a noise 
As of some breathless racers whose hopes poise 
Upon the last few steps, and with spent force 
Along the ground they took a winding course. 
Endymion follow'd — for it seem'd that one 
Ever pursued, the other strove to shun — 
Follow'd their languid mazes, till well nigh 
He had left thinking of the mystery, — 
And was now rapt in tender hoverings 
Over the vanish'd bliss. Ah ! what is it sings 
His dream away ? What melodies are these ? 
They sound as through the whispering of trees, 
Not native in such barren vaults. Give ear 1 

" O Arethusa, peerless nymph 1 why fear 
Such tenderness as mine ? Great Dian, why, 
Why didst thou hear her prayer ? O that I 
Were rippling round her dainty fairness now, 
Circling about her waist, and striving how 
To entice her to a dive ! then stealing in 
Between her luscious lips and eyelids thin. 
O that her shining hair was in the sun, 
And I distilling from it thence to run 
In amorous rillets down her shrinking form ! 
To linger on her lilv shoulders, warm 
Between her kissing breasts, and every charm 
Touch raptured ! — see how painfully I flow : 
Fair maid, be pkiful to my great woe. 
Stay, stay thy weary course, and let me lead, 
A happy wooer, to the flowery mead 
Where all that beauty snared me." — " Cruel god 
Desist ! or my offended mistress* nod 
Will stagnate all thy fountains : — tease me not 
With syren words — Ah, have I really got 
Such power to madden thee ? And is it true — 



ENDYMIOX. 81 

Away, away, or I shall dearly rue 

My very thoughts : in mercy then away, 

Kindest Alpheus, for should I obey 

My own dear will, 'twould be a deadly bane/' — 

" O, Oread-Queen ! would that thou hadst a pain 

Like this of mine, then w r ould I fearless turn 

And be a criminal." — " Alas, I burn, 

I shudder — gentle river, get thee hence. 

Alpheus ! thou enchanter ! every sense 

Of mine was once made perfect in these woods. 

Fresh breezes, bowery lawns, and innocent floods, 

Ripe fruits, and lonely couch, contentment gave ; 

But ever since I heedlessly did lave 

In thy deceitful strean., a panting glow 

Grew strong within me : wherefore serve me so, 

And call it love ? Alas ! 'twas cruelty. 

Not once more did I close my happy eyes 

Amid the thrush's song. Away ! avaunt ! 

'twas a cruel thing." — " Now thou dost taunt 
So softly, Arethusa, that I think 

If thou wast playing on my shady brink, 

Thou wouldst bathe once again. Innocent maid 

Stifle thine heart no more ; — nor be afraid 

Of angry powers : there are deities 

Will shade us with their wings. Those fitful sighi 

Tis almost death to hear : O let me pour 

A dewy balm upon them ! — fear no more, 

Sweet Arethusa ! Dian's self must feel, 

Sometimes, these very pangs. Dear maiden, steal 

Blushing into my soul, and let us fly 

These dreary caverns for the open sky. 

1 will delight thee all my winding course, 
From the green sea up to my hidden source 
About Arcadian forests ; and will show 
The channels where my coolest waters flow 
Through mossy rocks ; where 'mid exuberant green 
I roam in pleasant darkness, more unseen 

Than Saturn in his exile ; where I brim 



90 £NDYMION. 

Round flowery islands, and take thence a skim 

Of mealy sweets, which myriads of bees 

Buzz from their honey 'd wings : and thou should* 

please 
Thyself to choose the richest, where we might 
Be incense-pillow'd every summer night. 
Doff all sad fears, thou white deliciousness, 
And let us Le thus comforted ; unless 
Thou couldst rejoice to see my hopeless stream 
Hurry distracted from Sol's temperate beam, 
And pour to death along some hungry sands." — 
" What can I do, Alpheus ? Dian stands 
Severe before me : persecuting fate ! 
Unhappy Arethusa ! thou wast late 
A huntress free in — " At this, sudden fell 
Those two sad streams adown a fearful dell. 
The Latmian listen'd, but he heard no more, 
Save echo, faint repeating o'er and o'er 
The name of Arethusa. On the verge 
Of that dark gulf he wept, and said : u I urge 
Thee, gentle Goddess of my pilgrimage, 
By our eternal hopes, to soothe, to assuage, 
If thou art powerful, these lovers' pains ; 
And make them happy in some happy plains.* 

He turn'd — there was a whelming sound — be 
stept, 
There was a cooler light ; and so he kept 
Towards it by a sandy path, and lo ! 
More suddenly than doth a moment go, 
The visions of the earth were gone and fled — 
He saw the giant sea above his head. 




END TM ION. *\ 



book in. 

There are who lord it o'er their fellow men 

With most prevailing tinsel : who unpen 

Their baaing vanities, to browse away 

The comfortable green and juicy hay 

From human pastures ; or, O torturing fact ! 

Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd 

Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe 

Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one 

tinge 
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight 
Able to face an owl's, they still are dight 
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests, 
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts, 
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount 
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account, 
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, theif 

thrones — 
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones 
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums, 
And sudden cannon. Ah ! how all this hums, 
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone — 
Like thunder-clouds that spake to Babylon, 
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks. — 
Are then regalities all gilded masks ? 
No, there are throned seats unscalable 
But by a patient wing, a constant spell, 
Or by ethereal things that, unconfined, 
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind, 
And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents 
To watch the abysm-birth of elements. 
Ay, 'bove the withering of old-Hpp'd Fata 
A thousand Powers keep religious state, 
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne ; 
And, silent as a consecrated urn, 
Hold sphery sessions for a season due. 



92 EN DY MI ON. 

Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few ! 

Have bared their operations to this globe — 

Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe 

Our piece of heaven — whose benevolence 

Shakes hand with our own Ceres ; every sense 

Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude, 

As bees gorge full their cells. And by the feud 

'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear, 

Eterne Apollo ! that thy Sister fair 

Is of all these the gentlier-niightiest. 

When thy gold breath is misting in the west, 

She unobserved steals unto her throne, 

And there she sits most meek and most alone ; 

As if she had not pomp subservient ; 

As if thine eye, high Poet ! was not bent 

Towards her with the Muses in thine heart ; 

As if the minist'ring stars kept not apart, 

Waiting for silver-footed messages. 

O Moon ! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees 

Feel palpitations when thou lookest in : 

O Moon ! old boughs lisp forth a holier din 

The while they feel thine airy fellowship. 

Thou dost bless everywhere, with silver lip 

Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine, 

Couch'd in thy brightness, dream of fields divine 

Innumerable mountains rise, and rise, 

Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes • 

And yet thy benediction passeth not 

One obscure hiding-place, one little spot 

Where pleasure may be sent : the nested wren 

Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken, 

And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf 

Takes glimpses of thee ; thou art a relief 

To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps 

Within its pearly house ; — The mighty deeps, 

The monstrous sea is thine — the myriad sea ! 

O Moon far spooming Ocean bows to thee, 

And Tell ps feels her forehead's crunbrous load 



ENDYMION. 93 

Cynthia ! where art thou now ? What far abode 
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine 
Such utmost beauty ? Alas, thou dost pine 
For one as sorrowful : thy cheek is pale 
For one whose cheek is pale : thou dost bewail 
His tears who weeps for thee ! Where dost thou 

sigh? 
Ah ! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye, 
Or, what a thing is love ! 'Tis She, but lo ! 
How changed, how full of ache, how gone in woe 1 
She dies at the thinnest cloud ; her loveliness 
Is wan on Neptune's blue : )et there's a stress 
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees, 
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please 
The curly foam with amorous influence. 
O, not so idle ! for down glancing thence, 
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about 
O'erwhelming water-courses ; scaring out 
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright* 

ning 
Their savage eyes with unaccustom'd lightning. 
Where will the splendour be content to reach ? 
O love ! how potent hast thou been to teach 
Strange journeyings ! Wherever beauty dwells, 
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells, 
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun, 
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won. 
Amid his toil thou gavest Leander breath ; 
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams m 

death ; 
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element : 
And now, O winged Chieftain ! thou hast sent 
A moonbeam to the deep, deep water-world, 
To find Endymion. 

On gold sand impearl'd 
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white, 
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and soothed her ligat 



H ENDYM10N. 

Against his pallid face : he felt the charm 

To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm 

Of his heart's blood : 'twas very sweet ; he stayM 

His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid 

His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds, 

To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads, 

Lash'd from the crystal roof by fishes' tails. 

And so he kept, until the rosy veils 

Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand 

Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd 

Into sweet air ; and sober'd morning came 

Meekly through billows : — when like taper-flamt 

Left sudden by a dallying breath of air, 

He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare 

Along his fated way. 

Far had he roam'd, 
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd 
Above, around, and at his feet ; save things 
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings : 
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breastplates large 
Of gone sea-warriors ; brazen beaks and targe ; 
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost 
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd 
With long-forgotten story, and wherein 
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin 
But those of Saturn's vintage ; mouldering scrolls. 
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls 
Who first were on the earth ; and sculptures 

rude 
In ponderous stone, developing the mood 
Of ancient Nox ; — then skeletons of man, 
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan, 
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw 
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe 
These secrets struck into him ; and unless 
Dian had chased away that heaviness, 
He nuVht have died . but now, with cheered fe*^ 



END YM ION. W 

He onward kept ; wooing these thoughts to steal 
About the labyrinth in his soul of love. 

" What is there in thee, Moon ! that thou shouldst 
move 
My heart so potently ? When yet a child 
I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smiled. 
Thou seeni'dst my sister : hand in hand we went 
From eve to morn across the firmament. 
No apples would I gather from the tree, 
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously : 
No tumbling water ever spake romance, 
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance s 
No woods were green enough, no bower divine, 
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine : 
In sowing-time ne'er would I dibble take, 
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake ; 
And, in the summer- tide of blossoming, 
No one but thee hath heard me blithely sing 
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night. 
No melody was like a passing spright 
If it went not to solemnize thy reign. 
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain 
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end ; 
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend 
With all my ardours ; thou wast the deep glen ; 
Thou wast the mountain-top — the sage's pen — 
The poet's harp — the voice of friends — the still 
Thou wast the river — thou wast glory won ; 
Thou wast my clarion's blast — thou wast taj 

steed — 
My goblet full of wine — my topmost deed : — 
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon 
O what a wild and harmonized tune 
My spirit struck from all the beautiful ! 
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull 
Myself to immortality : I prest 
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful reft 



9« EN DY Ml ON. 

But gentle Orb ! there came a nearer bliss ^» 

My strange love came — Felicity's abyss ! 

She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away* 

Yet not entirely ; no, thy starry sway 

Has been an under-passion to this hour. 

Now I begin to feel thine orby power. 

Is coming fresh upon me : O be kind ! 

Keep back thine influence, and do not blind 

My sovereign vision. — Dearest love, forgive 

That I can think away from thee and live 1 — 

Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize 

One thought bevond thine argent luxuries ! 

How far beyond ! " At this a surprised start 

Frosted the springing verdure of his heart ; 

For as he lifted up his eyes to swear 

How his own goddess was past all things fair, 

He saw far in the concave green of the sea 

An old man sitting calm and peacefully. 

Upon a weeded rock this old man sat, 

And his white hair was awful, and a mat 

Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet ; 

And, ample as the largest winding-sheet, 

A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones, 

O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest groanf 

Of ambitious magic : every ocean-form 

Was woven in with black distinctness ; storm, 

And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar 

Were emblem'd in the woof; with every shape 

That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape aiM 

cape. 
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell, 
Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and swell 
To its huge self; and the minutest fish 
Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish, 
And show his little eye's anatomy. 
Then there was pictured the regality 
Of Neptune ; and the sea-nymphs round his state, 
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait 



EN DY MI ON, f7 

Beside this old man lay a pearly wand, 

And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd 

So steadfastly, that the new denizen 

Had time to keep him in amazed ken, 

To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe. 

The old man raised his hoary head and saw 
The wilder'd stranger — seeming not to see, 
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly 
He woke as from a trance ; his snow-white brow? 
Went arching up, and like two manic ploughs 
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large, 
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge, 
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile. 
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil 
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage, 
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age 
Eased in one accent his o'erburden'd soul, 
Even to the trees. He rose : he grasp'd his stole. 
With convulsed clenches waving it abroad, 
And in a voice of solemn joy, that awed 
Echo into oblivion, he said : — 

" Thou art the man ! Now shall I lay my head 
In peace upon my watery pillow : now 
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow. 
O Jove ! I shall be young again, be young ! 
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierced and stung 
With new-born life I What shall I do ? Where go. 
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe ? — 
I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen 
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten ; 
Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be, 
That writhes about the roots of Sicily : 
To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail, 
And mount upon the snortings of a whale 
To some black cloud ; thence down Til madly sweep 
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep, 
% 



98 ENDYMION 

Where through some sucking pool I will be hnrFd 

With rapture td the other side of the world ! 

O, I am full of gladness ! Sisters three, 

I bow full-hearted to your old decree ! 

Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign, 

For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine. 

Thou art the man ! " Endymion started back 

Dismay'd ; and like a wretch from whom the rack 

Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony, 

Mutter'd : " What lonely death am I to die 

In this cold region V Will he let me freeze, 

And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas ? 

Or will he touch me with his searing hand, 

And leave a black memorial on the sand ? 

Or tear me piecemeal with a bony saw, 

And keep me as a chosen food to draw 

His magian fish through hated fire and flame ? 

O misery of hell ! resistless, tame, 

Am I to be burn'd up ? No, I will shout, 

Until the gods through heaven's blue look out I — 

Tartarus ! but some few days agone 
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on 

Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves : 

Her lips were all my own, and — ah, ripe sheaves 

Of happiness ! ye on the stubble droop, 

But never may be garner'd. I must stoop 

My head, and kiss death's foot. Love ! love, fare 

well ! 
Is there no hope from thee ? This horrid spell 
Would melt at thy sweet breath. — By Dian's hind 
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind 

1 see thy streaming hair ! and now, by Pan, 
I care not for this old mysterious man I n 

He spake, and walking to that aged form, 
Look'd high defiance. Lo ! his heart 'gan warm 
With pity, for the gray-haired creature wept 
Had he then wrong'd a hearl where sorrow kept ? 



EN DY MI ON. %• 

Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought 
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought, 
Convulsion to a mouth of many years? 
He had in truth ; and he was ripe for tears. 
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt 
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt 
About his large dark locks, and faltering spake : 

M Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake ! 
I know thine inmost bosom, and I feel 
A very brother's yearning for thee steal 
into mine own : for why ? thou openest 
The prison-gates that have so long oppress'd 
My weary watching. Though thou know'st it noi» 
Thou art commission'd to this fated spot 
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more ! 
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore : 
Ay, hadst thou never loved an unknown power, 
I had been grieving at this joyous hour 
But even now, most miserable old, 
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold 
Gave mighty pulses : in this tottering case 
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays 
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid, 
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd, 
Now as we speed towards our joyous task." 

So saying, this young soul in age's mask 
Went forward with the Carian side by side : 
Resuming quickly thus ; while ocean's tide 
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewell'd sands 
Took silently their foot-prints. 

" My soul standi 
J&jw past the midway from mortaiity, 
And so I can prepare without a sigh 
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain. 
I was a fisher once, upon this main, 



100 ENDYMION. 

And my boat danced in every creek and bay ; 

Rough billows were my home by night and day, — 

The sea-gulls not more constant ; for I had 

No housing from the storm and tempests mad, 

But hollow rocks, — and they were palaces 

Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease : 

Long years of misery have told me so. 

Ay, thus it was one thousand years ago. 

One thousand years ! — Is it then possible 

To look so plainly through them ? to dispel 

A thousand years with backward glance sublime ? 

To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime 

From off a crystal pool, to see its deep, 

And one's own image from the bottom peep ? 

Yes : now I am no longer wretched thrall, 

My long captivity and moanings all 

Are but a slime, a thin-pervading scum, 

The which I breathe away, and thronging come 

Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures. 

" I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures 
I was a lonely youth on desert shores. 
My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars, 
And craggy isles, and seamews' plaintive cry 
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky. 
Dolphins were stiil my playmates ; shapes unseen 
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green, 
Nor be my desolation ; and, full oft, 
When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft 
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe 
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe 
My life away like a vast sponge of fate, 
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state, 
Has dived to its foundations, gulf'd it down, 
And left me tossing safely. But the crown 
Of all my life was utmost quietude : 
More did I love to lie in cavern rude, 
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voicei 



ENDTMION. 10) 

And if it came at last, hark, arid rejoice ! 
There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer 
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear 
The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep, 
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep : 
And never was a day of summer shine, 
But I beheld its birth upon the brine : 
For I would watch all night to see unfold 
Heaven's gates, and iEthon snort his morning gold 
Wide o'er the swelling streams : and constantly 
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea, 
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest. 
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest 
With daily boon of fish most delicate : 
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate 
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach. 

11 Why was I not contented ? Wherefore re&cfi 
A t things which, but for thee, O Latmian ! 
Had been my dreary death ! Fool 1 I began 
To feel distemper'd longings : to desire 
The utmost privilege that ocean's sire 
Could grant in benediction : to be free 
Of all his kingdom. Long in misery 
I wasted, ere in one extremest fit 
I plunged for life or death. To interknit 
One's senses with so dense a breathing stuff 
Might seem a work of pain ; so not enough 
Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt, 
And buoyant round my limbs. At first I dwelt 
Whole days and days in sheer astonishment. ; 
Forgetful utterly of self-intent ; 
Moving but with the mighty ebb and flow. 
Then, like a new-fledged bird that first doth sho^ 
His spreaded feathers to the morrow chill, 
I tried in fear the pinions of my will. 
'Twas freedom ! and at once I visited 
The ceaseless wonders of this ocean-bed. 



102 ENDYMION. 

No need to tell thee of them, for I see 

That thou hast been a witness — it must be 

For these I know thou canst not feel a drouth, 

By the melancholy corners of that mouth. 

So I will in my story straightway pass 

To more immediate matter. Woe, alas ! 

That love should be my bane ! Ah, Scylla fair 1 

Why did poor Glaucus ever — ever dare 

To sue thee to his heart ? Kind stranger-youth ! 

I loved her to the very white of truth, 

And she would not conceive it. Timid thing I 

She fled me swift as sea-bird on the wing, 

Round every isle, and point, and promontory, 

From where large Hercules wound up his story 

Far as Egyptian Nile. My passion grew 

The more, the more I saw her dainty hue 

Gleam delicately through the azure clear : 

Until 'twas too fierce agony to bear ; 

And in that agony, across my grief 

It flash'd, that Circe might find some relief — 

Cruel enchantress ! So above the water 

I rear'd my head, and look'd for Phoebus' daughter 

-*Eaea's isle was wondering at the moon : — 

It seem'd to whirl around me, and a swoon 

Left me dead-drifting to that fatal power. 

" When I awoke, 'twas in a twilignt bower ; 
Just when the light of morn, with hum of bees, 
Stole through its verdurous matting of fresh tree*. 
How sweet, and sweeter ! for I heard a lyre, 
And over it a sighing voice expire. 
It ceased — I caught light footsteps ; and anon 
The fairest face that morn e'er look'd upon 
Push'd through a screen of roses. Starry Jove I 
With tears, and smiles, and honey-words she wovt 
A net whose thraldom was more bliss than all 
The range of flower'd Elysium. Thus did fall 
The dew of her rich speech : * Ah ! art awake ? 



ENDYMIOX. 10 J 

let me hear thee speak, for Cupid's sake ! 

1 am so oppress'd with j<by ! Why, I have shed 
An urn of tears, as though thou wert cold dead ; 
And now I find thee living, I will pour 

From these devoted eyes their silver store, 
Until exhausted, of the latest drop, 
So it will pleasure thee, and force thee stop 
Here, that I too may live : but if beyond 
Such cool and sorrowful offerings, thou art fond 
Of soothing warmth, of dalliance supreme ; 
If thou art ripe to taste a long love-dream ; 
If smiles, if dimples, tongues for ardour mute, 
Hang in thy vision like a tempting fruit, 

let me pluck it for thee ! ' Thus she link'd 
Her charming syllables, till indistinct 

Their music came to my o'er-sweeten'd soul ; 
And then she hover'd over me, and stole 
So near, that if no nearer it had been 
This furrow'd visage thou hadst never seen. 

11 Young man of Latmos ! thus particular 
Am I, that thou may'st plainly see how far 
This fierce temptation went : and thou may'st not 
Exclaim, How, then, was Scylla quite forgot ? 

" Who could resist ? Who in this universe ? 
She did so breathe ambrosia ; so immerse 
My fine existence in a golden clime. 
She took me like a child of suckling time, 
And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn'd, 
The current of my former life was stemm'd, 
And to this arbitrary queen of sense 

1 bow'd a tranced vassal : nor would thence 
Have moved, even though Amphion's harp had 

woo'd 
Me back to Scylla o'er the billows rude. 
For as Apollo each eve doth devise 
A new apparelling for western skies : 



104 ENDYMWN. 

So every eve, nay, every spendthrift hour 
Shed balmy consciousness within that bower. 
And I was free of haunts umbrageous ; 
Could wander in the mazy forest-house 
Of squirrels, foxes shy, and antler'd deer, 
And birds from coverts innermost and drear 
Warbling for very joy mellifluous sorrow — 
To me new-born delights I 

" Now let me borrow 
2 or moments few, a temperament as stern 
As Pluto's sceptre, that my words not burn 
These uttering lips, while I in calm speech tell 
How specious heaven was changed to real hell. 

" One morn she left me sleeping : half awake 
I sought for her smooth arms and lips, to slake 
My greedy thirst with nectarous camel-draughts ; 
But she was gone. Whereat the barbed shafts 
Of disappointment stuck in me so sore, 
That out I ran and search'd the forest o'er. 
Wandering about in pine and cedar gloom 
Damp awe assail'd me, for there 'gan to boom 
A sound of moan, an agony of sound, 
Sepulchral from the distance all around. 
Then came a conquering earth-thunder, and run* 

bled 
That fierce complain to silence : while I stumbled 
Down a precipitous path, as if impell'd. 
I came to a dark valley. — Groan ings sweli'd 
Poisonous about my ears, and louder grew, 
The nearer I approach'd a flame's gaunt blue* 
That glared before me through a thorny brake. 
This fire, like the eye of gordian snake, 
Bewitch'd me towards ; and I soon Was near 
A sight too fearful for the feel of fear : 
In thicket hid I cursed the haggard scene — 
The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen. 



ENDTMION. 10* 

Seated upon an uptorn forest root ; 

And all around her shapes, wizard and brute, 

Laughing, and wailing, grovelling, serpenting, 

Showing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting. 

O such deformities ! old Charon's self, 

Should he give up awhile his penny pelf, 

And take a dream 'mong rushes Stygian, 

It could not be so fantasied. Fierce, wan, 

.\nd tyrannizing was the lady's look, 

As over them a gnarled staff she shook. 

Ofttimes upon the sudden she laugh'd out, 

And from a basket emptied to the rout 

Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd qinck 

And roar'd for more ; with many a hungry Hck 

About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow, 

Anon she took a branch of mistletoe, 

And emptied on't a black dull-gurgling phial : 

Groan'd one and all, as if some piercing trial 

Was sharpening for their pitiable bones. 

She lifted up the charm : appealing groans 

From their poor breasts went suing to her ear 

In vain ; remorseless as an infant's bier 

She whisk'd against their eyes the sooty oil. 

Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil, 

Increasing gradual to a tempest rage, 

Shrieks, yells, and groans of torture-piignmage ; 

Until their grieved bodies 'gan to bloat 

And puff from the tail's end to stifled throat : 

Then was appalling silence : then a sight 

More wildering than all that hoarse affright ; 

For the whole herd, as by a whirlwind writhen, 

Went through the dismal air like one huge Python 

Antagonizing Boreas, — and so vanish'd, 

Yet there was not a breath of wind : she banish'd 

These phantoms with a nod. Lo ! from the dark 

Came waggish fauns, and nymphs, and satyrs stark, 

With dancing and loud revelry, — and went 

Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent. — 



106 END YM ION. 

Sighing an elephant appear'd and bow'd 
Before the fierce witch, speaking thus aloud 
In human accent : i Potent goddess ! chief 
Of pains resistless ! make my being brief, 
Or let me from this heavy prison fly : 
Or give me to the air, or let me die ! 
I sue not for my happy crown again ; 
I sue not for my phalanx on the plain ; 
I me not for my lone, my widow'd wife : 
J sue not for my ruddy drops of life, 
My children fair, my lovely girls and boys 
I will forget them ; I will pass these joys ; 
Ask nought so heavenward, so too — too high 
Only I pray, as fajrest boon, to die, 
Or be deliver'd from this cumbrous flesh, 
From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh, 
And merely given to the cold bleak air. 
Have mercy, Goddess ! Circe, feel my prayer ! 

" That curst magician's name fell icy numb 
Upon my wild conjecturing : truth had come 
Naked and sabre-like against my heart. 
I saw a fury whetting a death-dart ; 
And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright, 
Fainted away in that dark lair of night. 
Think, my deliverer, how desolate 
My waking must have been ! disgust and hate, 
And terrors manifold divided me 
A spoil amongst them. I prepared to flee 
Into the dungeon core of that wild wood : 
I fled three days — when lo ! before me stood 
Glaring the angry witch. O Dis, even now, 
A clammy dew is beading on my brow, 
At mere remembering her pale laugh, and cursei 
4 Ha I ha ! Sir Dainty ! there must be a nurse 
Made of rose-leaves and thistle-down, express, 
To cradle thee, my sweet, and lull thee : yes, 
I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch : 



ENDYMIOrf. 10T 

My tende^st squeeze is but a giant's clutch. 

So, fairy-thing, it shall have lullabies 

Unheard of yet ; and it shall still its cries 

Upon some breast more lily-feminine. 

Oh, no — it shall not pine, and pine, and pine 

More than one pretty, trifling thousand years ; 

And then 'twere pity, but fate's gentle shears 

Cut short its immortality. Sea-flirt ! 

Young dove of the waters ! truly I'll not hurt 

One hair of thine : see how I weep and sigh, 

That our heart-broken parting is so nigh. 

And must we part ? Ah, yes, it must be so. 

Yet ere thou leavest me in utter woe, 

Let me sob over thee my last adieus, 

And speak a blessing : Mark me ! thou hast thewi 

Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race : 

But such a love is mine, that here I chase 

Eternally away from thee all bloom 

Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb. 

Hence shalt thou quickly to the watery vast ; 

And there, ere many days be overpast, 

Disabled age shall seize thee ; and even then 

Thou shalt not go the way of aged men ; 

But live and wither, cripple and still breathe 

Ten hundred years : which gone, I then bequeathe 

Thy fragile bones to unknown burial. 

Adieu, sweet love, adieu 1 ' — As shot stars fall, 

She fled ere I ^ould groan for mercy. Stung 

And poison'd was my spirit : despair sung 

A war-song of defiance 'gainst all hell. 

A hand was at my shoulder to compel 

My sullen steps ; another 'fore my eyes 

Moved on with pointed finger. In this guise 

Enforced, at the last by ocean's foam 

I found me ; by my fresh, my native home, 

Its tempering coolness, to my life akin, 

Came salutary as I waded in ; 

And, with a blind voluptuous rage, I gave 



108 ENDYMION. 

Battle to the swollen billow-ridge, and drave 
Large froth before me, while there yet remained 
Hale strength, nor from my bones all marrovi 
drain'd. 

" Young lover, I must weep — such hellish s^ite 
With dry cheek who can tell ? While thus my 

might 
Proving upon this element, dismay'd, 
Upon a dead thing's face my hand I laid ; 
I look'd — 'twas Scylla ! Cursed, cursed Circe ? 

vulture-witch, hast never heard of mercy ! 
Could not thy harshest vengeance be content, 
But thou must nip this tender innocent 
Because I loved her ? — Cold, O cold indeed 
Were her fair limbs, and like a common weed 
The sea-swell took her hair. Dead as she was 

1 clung about her waist, nor ceased to pass 
Fleet as an arrow through unfathom'd brine, 
Until there shone a fabric crystalline, 

Ribb'd and inlaid with coral, pebble, and pearl 

Headlong I darted ; at one eager swirl 

Gain'd its bright portal, enter'd, and behold . 

'Twas vast, and desolate, and icy-cold ; 

And all around — But wherefore this to thee 

Who in few minutes more thyself shalt see ? — 

I left poor Scylla in a niche and fled. 

My fever'd parchings up, my scathing dread 

Met palsy half way : soon these limbs became 

Gaunt, wither'd, sapless, feeble, cramp'd, and lam* 

" Now let me pass a cruel, cruel space, 
Without one hope, without one faintest trace 
Of mitigation, or redeeming bubble 
Of colourd phantasy : for 1 fear 'twould trouble 
Thy brain to loss of reason : and next tell 
How a restoring chance came down to quell 
One half of the witch in me. 



END 1M ION. 101 

" On a day, 
Sitting upon a rock above the spray, 
I saw grow up from the horizon's brink 
A gallant vessel : soon she seem'd to sink 
Away from me again, as though her course 
Had been resumed in spite of hindering force — 
So vanish'd : and not long, before arose 
Dark clouds, and muttering of winds morose, 
Old JEolus would stifle his mad spleen, 
But could not ; therefore, all the billows green 
Toss'd up the silver spume against the clouds. 
The tempest came : I saw that vessel's shrouds 
In perilous bustle ; while upon the deck 
Stood trembling creatures. I beheld the wreck ; 
The final gulfing ; the poor struggling souls ; 
I heard their cries amid loud thunder-rolls. 

they had all been saved but crazed eld 
Annull'd my vigorous cravings ; and thus quelFd 
And curb'd, think on't, O Latmian ! did I sit 
Writhing with pity, and a cursing fit 

Against that hell-born Circe. The crew had gone. 

By one and one, to pale oblivion ; 

And I was gazing on the surges prone, 

With many a scalding tear, and many a groan, 

When at my feet emerged an old man's hand, 

Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand. 

1 knelt with pain — reach'd out my hand — hac 1 ; 

grasp'd • 

These treasures — touch'd the knuckles — they us [ 

clasp'd — \ 

I caught a finger : but the downward weight 
O'erpower'd me — it sank. Then 'gan abate 
The storm, and through chill aguish gloom outburst 
The comfortable sun. I was athirst 
To search the book, and in the warming air 
Parted its dripping leaves with eager care. 
Strange matters did it treat of, and drew on 
My soul page after page, till well nigh won 



lie ENDYM10N. 

Into forgetfulness ; when, stupefied, 

£ read these words, and read again, and tried 

My eyes against the heavens, and read again. 

O what a load of misery and pain 

Each Atlas-line bore off! — a shine of hope 

Came gold around me, cheering me to cope 

Strenuous with hellish tyranny. Attend ! 

For thou hast brought their promise to an end. 

" * In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch, 
Dooni'd with enfeebled carcase to outstretch 
His loathed existence through ten centuries, 
And then to die alone. Who can devise 
A total opposition ? No one. So 
One million times ocean must ebb and flow, 
And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die, 
These things accomplish'd : — If he utterly 
Scans all the depths of magic, and expounds 
The meanings of all motions, shapes, and sound* ; 
If he explores all forms and substances 
Straight homeward to their symbol-essences ; 
He shall not die. Moreover, and in chief, 
He must pursue this task of joy and grief 
Most piously ; — all lovers tempest-tost, 
And in the savage overwhelming lost, 
He shall deposit side by side, until 
Time's creeping shall the dreary space fulfil . 
Which done, and all these labours ripened, 
A youth, by heavenly power loved and led, 
Shall stand before him ; whom he shall direct 
How to consummate all. The youth elect 
Must do the thing, or both will be destroy'd.' " 

" Then," cried the young Endymion, overjcy'd, 
u We are twin brothers in this destiny ! 
Say, I entreat thee, what achievement high 
Is, in this restless world, for me reserved. 
What ! if from thee my wandering feet had 
swerved. 



ENoYMION. HI 

Mad we Doth perish'd ? " — u Look ! " the sage re- 
plied, 
" Dost thou not mark a gleaming through the tide, 
Of divers brilliances ? 'tis the edifice 
I told thee of, where lovely Scylla lies ; 
And where I have enshrined piously 
All lovers, whom fell storms have doom'd to die 
Throughout my bondage." Thus discoursing, on 
They went till unobscured the porches shone ; 
Which hurryingly they gain'd, and enter'd straight 
Sure never since king Neptune held his state 
Was seen such wonder underneath the stars. 
Turn to some level plain where haughty Mars 
Has legion'd all his battle ; and behold 
How every soldier, with firm foo;, doth hold 
His even breast ; see, many steeled squares, 
And rigid ranks of iron — whence who dares 
One step ? Imagine further,, line by line, 
These warrior thousands on the field supine : — 
So in that crystal place, in silent rows, 
Poor lovers lay at rest from joys and woes. 
The stranger from the mountains, breathless, traced 
Such thousands of shut eyes in order placed ; 
Such ranges of white feet, and patient lips 
All ruddy, — for here death no blossom nips. 
He mark'd their brows and foreheads; saw theb 

hair 
Put sleekly on one side with nicest care ; 
And each one's gentle wrists, with reverence, 
Put cross- wise to its heart. 

" Let us commence 
CWhisper'd the guide, stuttering with joy) ewem 

now." 
He spake, and, trembling like an aspen-bough 
Began to tear his scroll in pieces small. 
Uttering the while some mumblings funeral 
He tore it into pieces small as snow 



112 ENDYMIOfl 

That drifts unfeather'd when bleak northerns 

blow ; 
And having done it, took his dark blue cloak 
And bound it round Endymion : then struck 
His wand against the empty air times nine. 
" What more there is to do, young man, is thine : 
But first a little patience ; first undo 
This tangled thread, and wind it to a clue. 
Ah, gentle ! 'tis as weak as spider's skein ; 
And shculdst thou break it — What, is it done ao 

clean ? 
A power overshadows thee ! Oh, brave ! 
The spite of hell is tumbling to its grave. 
Here is a shell ; 'tis pearly blank to me, 
Nor mark'd with any sign or charactery — 
Canst thou read aught ? O read for pity's sake ! 
Olympus ! we are safe ! Now, Carian, break 
This wand against yon lyre on the pedestal." 

'Twas done : and straight with sudden swell and 
fall 

Sweet music breathed her soul away, and sigh'd 
A lullaby to silence. — " Youth ! now strew 
These minced leaves on me, and passing through 
Those files of dead, scatter the same around. 
And thou wilt see the issue." — 'Mid the sound 
Of flutes and viols, ravishing his heart, 
Endymion from Glaucus stood apart, 
And scatter'd in his face some fragments light. 
How lightning-swift the change ! a youthful wight 
Smiling beneath a coral diadem, . 
Out-sparkling sudden like an upturn'd gem, 
Appear'd, and, stepping to a beauteous corse, 
Kneel'd down beside it, and with tenderest force 
Press'd its cold hand, and wept — and Scjlla 

sigh'd ! 
Endymion, with quick hand, the charm applied — 
Hie nymph arose he left them to their joy, 



ENDYMION. 118 

And onward went upon his high employ, 

Showering those powerful fragments on tie dead, 

And, as he passed, each lifted up its head, 

As doth a flower at Apollo's touch 

Death felt it to his inwards ; 'twas too much : 

Death fella-weeping in his charnei-house. 

The Latmian persevered along, and thus 

All were reanimated. There arose 

A noise of harmony, pulses and throes 

Of gladness in the'air — while manv, who 

Had died in mutual arms devout and true, 

Sprang to each other madly ; and the rest 

Felt a high certainty of being blest, 

They gazed upon Endymion? Enchantment 

Grew drunken, and would have its head and bent 

Delicious symphonies, like airv flowers, 

Budded, and swell'd, and, full-blown, shed full 

showers 
Of light, soft, unseen leaves of sounds divine. 
The two deliverers tasted a pure wine 
Of happiness, from fairy press oozed out. 
Speechless they eyed each other, and about 
The fair assembly wander'd to and fro, 
Distracted with the richest overflow 
Of joy that ever pour'd from heaven. 

, , , "Away!" 

Shouted the new-born god ; " Follow, and pay 

Our piety to Neptunus supreme I "— 

Then Scylla, blushing sweetly from her dream, 

They led on first, bent to her meek surprise, 

Through portal columns of a giant size 

Into the vaulted, boundless emerald. 

Joyous all follow'd, as the leader call'd, 

Down marble steps ; pouring as easily 

As hour-glass sand — and fast, as you might gee 

Swallows obeying the south summers call, 

Oi swans upon a gentle waterfall. 



114 END YM 1 ON. 

Thus wont that beautiful multitude, nor far, 
Ere from among some rocks of glittering spar, 
Just within ken, they saw descending thick 
Another multitude. Whereat more quick 
Moved either host. On a wide sand they met, 
And of those numbers every eye was wet ; 
For each their old love found. A murmuring roM 
Like what was never heard in all the throes 
Of wind and waters : 'tis past human wit 
To tell ; 'tis dizziness to think of it. 

This mighty consummation made, the host 
Moved on for many a league ; and gain'd and *oet 
Huge sea-marks ; van ward swelling in array, 
And from the rear diminishing away, 
Till a faint dawn surprised them. Glaucus cried, 
" Behold ! behold, the palace of his pride ! 
God Neptune's palaces." With noise increased, 
They shoulder'd on towards that brightening east 
At every onward step proud domes arose 
In prospect, diamond gleams and golden glows 
Of amber 'gainst their faces levelling. 
Joyous, and many as the leaves in spring, 
Still onward ; still the splendour gradual swell'cL 
Rich opal domes were seen, on high upheld 
By jasper pillars, letting througu their shafts 
A blush of coral. Copious wonder-draughts 
Each gazer drank ; and deeper drank more near 
For what poor mortals fragment up, as mere 
As marble was their lavish, to the vast 
Of one fair palace, that far, far surpass'd, 
Even for common bulk, those olden three, 
Memphis, and Babylon, and Nineveh. 

As large, as bright, as colour'd as the bow 
Of Iris, when unfading it doth show 
Beyond a silvery shower, was the arch 
Through which this Paphian army took its march. 



END YM I ON. HI 

[nto the outer courts of Neptune's state 

Whence could be seen, direct, a golden gate, 

To which the leaders sped ; but not half raught 

Ere it burst open swift as fairy thought, 

And made those dazzled thousands veil their eyes 

Like callow eagles at the first sunrise. 

Soon with an eagle nativeness their gaze 

Ripe from hue-golden swoons took all the blaze, 

And then, behold ! large Neptune on his throne 

Of emerald deep : yet not exalt alone ; 

At his right hand stood winged Love, and on 

His left sat smiling Beauty's paragon. 

Far as the manner on highest mast 
Can see all round upon the calmed vast, 
So wide was Neptune's hall : and as the blue 
Doth vault the waters, so the waters drew 
Their doming curtains, high, magnificent, 
Awed from the throne aloof; — and when storm-rent 
Disclosed the thunder-gloomings in Jove's air; 
But soothed as now, flash'd sudden everywhere, 
Noiseless, sub-marine cloudlets, glittering 
Death to a human eye : for there did spring 
From natural west, and east, and south, and north, 
A light as of four sunsets, blazing forth 
A gold-green zenith 'bove the Sea-God's head. 
Of lucid depth the floor, and far outspread 
As breezeless lake, on which the slim canoe 
Of featherM Indian darts about, as through 
The delicatest air : air verily, 
But for the portraiture of clouds and sky : 
This palace floor breath-air, — but for the amaze 
Of deep-seen wonders motionless, — and blaze 
Of the doms pomp, reflected in extremes, 
Globing a golden sphere. 

They stood in dreamt 
Till Triton blew his horn. The palace rang ; 



116 ENDYMIOX. 

The Nereids danced; the Syrens faintly sang; 

And the great Sea- King bow'd his dripping head. 

Then Love took wing, and from his pinions shed 

On all the multitude a nectarous dew. 

The ooze-born Goddess beckoned and drew 

Fair Scylla and her guides to conference ; 

And when they reach'd the throned eminence 

She kiss'd the sea-nymph's cheek, who sat her dowv 

A toying with the doves. Thea, " Mighty crown 

And sceptre of this kingdom ! " Venus said, 

" Thy vows were on a time to Nais paid : 

Behold ! " — Two copious tear-drops instant fell 

From the God's large eyes ; he smiled delectable, 

And over Glaucus held his blessing hands. — 

" Endymion ! Ah ! still wandering in the bands 

Of love ? Now this is cruel. Since the hour 

I met thee in earth's bosom, all mypower 

Have I put forth to serve thee. What, not yet 

Escaped from dull mortality's harsh net ? 

A little patience, youth ! 'twill not be long, 

Or I am skilless quite : an idle tongue, 

A humid eye, and steps luxurious, 

Where these are new and strange, are ominous. 

Ay, I have seen these signs in one of heaven, 

When others were all blind ; and were I given 

To utter secrets, haply I might say 

Some pleasant words : but Love will have his day 

So wait awhile" expectant. Pr'ythee soon, 

Even in the passing of thine honey-moon, 

Visit my Cytherea : thou wilt find 

Cupid well-natured, my Adonis kind ; 

And pray persuade with thee — Ah, I have don** 

All blisses be upon thee, my sweet son ! " — 

Thus the fair Goddess : while Endymion 

Knelt to receive those accents halcyon. 

Meantime a glorious revelry began 
Before the Water-Monarch. Nectar ran 



ENDYM10N. 11? 

in courteous fountains to all cups outreach'd ; 

And plundered vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach'd 

New growth about each shell and pendent lyre ; 

The which, in entangling for their fire, 

PulPd down fresh foliage and coverture 

For dainty toy. Cupid, empire-sure, 

Flutter^ and laugh'd, and oft-times through th* 

throng 
Made a delighted way. Then dance, and song, 
And garlanding, grew wild ; and pleasure reign'd. 
In harmless tendril they each other chain'd, 
And strove who should be smother'd deepest in 
Fresh crush of leaves. 

O 'tis a very sin 
For one so weak to venture his poor verse 
In such a place as this. O do not curse, 
High Muses ! let him hurry to the ending. 

All suddenly were silent. A soft blending 
Of dulcet instruments came charmingly ; 
And then a hymn. 

"King of the stormy sea ! 
Brother of Jove, and co-inheritor 
Of elements ! Eternally before 
Thee the waves awful bow. Fast, stubborn rook, 
At thy fear'd trident shrinking, doth unlock 
Its deep foundations, hissing into foam. 
All mountain-rivers lost, in the wide home 
Of thy capacious bosom ever flow. 
Thou frown est, and old iEolus thy foe 
Skulks to his cavern, 'mid the gruff complaint 
Of all his rebel tempests. Dark clouds faint 
When, from thy diadem, a silver gleam 
Slants over blue dominion. Thy bright team 
Gulfs in the morning light, and scuds along 
To bring thee nearer to that ffolden song 



118 ENLYMIOb. 

Apollo singeth, while his chariot 

Waits at the doors of heaven. Thou irt not 

For scenes like this : an empire stern haet thou, 

And it hath furrow'd that large front : yet now, 

As newly come of heaven, dost thou sit 

To blend and interknit 

Subdued majesty with this glad time. 

O shell-born King sublime ! 

We lay our hearts before thee evermore — 

We sing, and we adore ! 

" Breathe softly, flutei 
Be tender of your strings, ye soothing lutes ; 
Nor be the trumpet heard I O vain, O vain 
Not flowers budding in an April rain, 
Nor breath of sleeping dove, nor river's flow — 
No, nor the iEolian twang of Love's own bow, 
Can mingle music fit for the soft ear 
Of goddess Cytherea! 

Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair eyes 
On our soul's sacrifice. 

" Bright- winged Child ! 
Who has another care when thou hast smiled ? 
Unfortuna-tes on earth, we see at last 
All death-shadows, and glooms that overcast 
Our spirits, fann'd away by thy light pinions. 
O sweetest essence 1 sweetest of all minions ! 
God of warm pulses, and dishevell'd hair, 
And panting bosoms bare 1 
Dear unseen light in darkness ! eclipser 
Of light in light ! delicious poisoner I 
Thy venom'd goblet will we quaff until 
We fill — we filll 
And by thy Mother's lips " 

Was heard no 
For clamour, when the golden palace-door 



END YM ION. HI 

Open'd again, and from without, in shone 
A new magnificence. On oozy throne 
Smooth-moving came Oceanus the old, 
To take a latest glimpse at his sheepfold, 
Before he went into his quiet cave 
To muse for ever — Then, a lucid wave, 
Scoop'd from its trembling sisters of mid-sea, 
Afloat, and pillowing up the majesty 
Of Doris, and the iEgean seer, her spouse — 
Next, on a dolphin, clad in laurel boughs, 
Theban Amphion leaning on his lute : 
His fingers went across it — All were mute 
To gaze on Amphitrite, queen of pearls, 
And Thetis pearly too. — 

Thi palace whirli 
Around giddy Endymion ; seeing he 
Was there far strayed from mortality. 
He could not bear rt — shut his eyes in vain ; 
Imagination gave a dizzier pain. 
" O I shall die ! sweet Venus, be my stay ! 
Where is my lovely mistress ? Well-away ! 
1 die — I hear her voice — I feel my wing — " 
At Neptune's feet he sank. A sudden ring 
Of Nereids were about him, in kind strife 
To usher back his spirit into life : 
But still he slept. At last they interwove 
Their cradling arms, and purposed to convey 
Towards a crystal bower far away. 

Lo! while slow carried through the pitying 
crowd, 
To his inward senses these words spake aloud; 
Written in star-light on the dark above : 
" Dearest Endymion ! my entire love ! 
How have I dwelt in fear of fate ; 'tis done — 
Immortal bliss for me too hast thou won. 
Arise then 1 for the hen-dove shall not hatch 



120 ENDYMION. 

Her ready eggs, Defore 1*11 kissing snatch 
Thee into endless heaven. Awake ! awake ! * 

The youth at once arose : a placid lake 
Came quiet to his eyes ; and forest green, 
Cooler than all the wonder he had seen, 
Lull'd with its simple song his fluttering breast 
How happy once again in grassy nest ! 



BOOK IV. 

Muse of my native land ! loftiest Muse ! 
O first-born on the mountains ! By the hues 
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot : 
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot, 
While yet our England was a wolfish den ; 
Before our forests heard the talk of men ; 
Before the first of Druids was a child ; — 
Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild, 
Rapt in a deep prophetic solitude. 
There came an eastern voice of solemn mood: — 
Yet wast thou patient. Then sang forth the Nine, 
Apollo's garland : — yet didst thou divine 
Such home-bred glory, that they cried in vain, 
" Come hither, Sister of the Island 1 " Plain 
Spake fair Ausonia ; and once more she spake 
A higher summons : — still didst thou betake 
Thee to thy native hopes. O thou hast won 
A full accomplishment ! The thing is done, 
Which undone, these our latter days had risen 
On barren souls. Great Muse, thou know'st what 

prison 
Of flesh and bone, curbs, and confines, and freti 
Our spirits' wings : despondency Resets 
Our pillows; and the fresh to-moriw morn 
Seems to give forth its light in very *corn 



ENDTMION. 1H 

Of our dull, uninspired, snail-paced live* 
Long have I said, how happy he who shrive* 
To thee ! But then I thought on poets gone, 
And could not pray : — nor can I now — to on 
I move to the end in lowliness of heart. — 

" Ah, woe is me ! that I should fondly part 
From my dear native land ! Ah, foolish maid ! 
Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade 
Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields ! 
To one so friendless the clear freshet yields 
A bitter coolness ; the ripe grape is sour : 
Yet I would have, great gods ! but one short hot? 
Of native air — let me but die at home." 

Endymion to heaven's airy dome 
Was offering up a hecatomb of vows, 
When these words reach'd him. Whereupon he bowi 
His head through thorny-green entanglement 
Of underwood, and to the sound is bent, 
Anxious as hind towards her hidden fawn. 

" Is no one near to help me ? No fair dawn 
Of life from charitable voice ? No sweet saying 
To set my dull and sadden'd spirit playing ? 
No hand to toy with mine ? No lips so sweet 
That I may worship them ? No eyelids meet 
To twinkle on my bosom ? No one dies 
Before me, till from these enslaving eyes 
BedemptioQ sparkles ! — I am sad and lost" 

Thou, Carian lord, hadst better have been 
Into a whirlpool. Vanish into air, 
Warm mountaineer ! for canst thou only bear 
A woman's sigh alone and in distress ? 
See not her charms ! Is Phoebe passionleai ? 
Phoebe is fairer far — O gaze no more : — 
Yet if thou wilt behold afi beauty's store, 



It9 ENDYMION. 

Behold her panting in the forest grass ! 
Do not those curls of glossy jet surpass 
For tenderness the arms so idly lain 
Amongst them ? Feelest not a kindred pain, 
To see such lovely eyes in swimming search 
After some warm delight, that seems to perch 
Dovelike in the dim cell lying beyond 
Their upper lids ? — Hist ! 

" O for Hermes' wand 
To touch this flower into human shape ! 
That woodland Hyacinthus could escape 
From his green prison, and here kneeling down 
Call me his queen, his second life's fair crown I 
Ah me, how I could love ! — My soul doth melt 
For the unhappy youth — Love ! I have felt 
So faint a kindness, such a meek surrender 
To what my own full thoughts had made too tender 
That but for tears my life had fled away ! 
Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day, 
And thou, old forest, hold ye this for true, 
There is no lightning, no authentic dew 
But in the eye of love : there's not a sound, 
Melodious howsoever, can confound 
The heavens and earth in one to such a death 
As doth the voice of love : there's not a breath 
Will mingle kindly with the meadow air, 
Till it has panted round, and stolen a share 
Of passion from the heart ! " — 

Upon a bough 
He leant, wretched. He surely cannot now 
Thirst for another love : O impious, 
That he can even dream upon it thus I 
Thought he, " Why am I not as are the dead, 
Since to a woe like this I have been led 
Through the dark earth, and through the wondrout 
sea? 



ENDYMION. 12* 

Goddess ! I love thee not the less : from thee 
By Juno's smile I turn not — no, no, no — 
While the great waters are at ebb and flow, — 
I have a triple soul 1 O fond pretence — 
For both, for both my love is so immense, 
I feel my heart is cut in twain for them." 

And so he groan'd, as one by beauty slain. 
The lady's heart beat quick, and he could see 
Her gentle bosom heave tumultuously. 
He sprang from his green covert : there she lay, 
Sweet as a musk-rose upon new-made hay ; 
With all her limbs on tremble, and her eyes 
Shut softly up alive. To speak he tries : 
" Fair damsel, pity me ! forgive that I 
Thus violate thy bower's sanctity ! 
O pardon me, for I am full of grief— 
Grief born of thee, young angel ! fairest thief ! 
Who stolen hast away the wings wherewith 

was to top the heavens. Dear maid, sith 
Thou art my executioner, and I feel 
Loving and hatred, misery and weal, 
Will in a few short hours be nothing to me, 
And all my story that much passion slew me ; 
Do smile upon the evening of my days ; 
And, for my tortured brain begins to craze, 
Be thou my nurse ; and let me understand 
How dying I shall kiss that lily hand. — 
Dost weep for me \ Then should I be content 
Scowl on, ye fates ! until the firmament 
Outblackens Erebus, and the full-cavern'd earth 
Crumbles into itself. By the cloud-girth 
Of Jove, those tears have given me a thirst 
To meet oblivion." — As her heart would burst 
The maiden sobb'd awhile, and then replied : 
" Why must such desolation betide 
As that thou speakest of? Are not thesa greti 
nooks 



Ifi ENDTMION. 

Empty of all misfortune ? Do the brooks 
Utter a gorgon voice ? Does yonder thrush, 
Schooling its half-fledged little ones to brush 
About the dewy forest, whisper tales ? — 
Sp eak not of grief, young stranger, or cold snails 
Will slime the rose to night. Though if thou wilt 
Methinks 'twould be a guilt — a very guilt — 
Not to companion thee, and sigh away 
The light — the dusk — the dark — till break oi 

day ! " 
u Dear laxly," said Endymion, " 'tis past : 
I love thee 1 and my days can never last. 
That I may pass in patience still speak • 
Let me have music dying, and I seek 
No more delight — I bid adieu to all. 
Didst thou not after other climates call, 
And murmur about Indian streams ? " — Then she, 
Sitting beneath the midmost forest tree, 
For pity sang this roundelay 

" O Sorrow ! 
Why dost borrow 

The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips ? — 
To give maiden blushes 
To the white rose bushes ? 

Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips ? 

" O Sorrow ! 

Why dost borrow 
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye ? — 

To give the glowworm light ? 

Or, on a moonless night, 
To tinge, on syren shores, the salt sea-spry ? 

" O Sorrow ! 
Why dost borrow 
The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue ? — 
To give at evening pale 



ENDYMIOb. I** 

Unto the nightingale, 
That thou mayst listen the cold dews tuaong ? 

" O Sorrow 1 

Why dost borrow 
Heart's lightness from the merriment of May? 

A lover would not tread 

A cowslip o- the head, 
Though he should dance from eve till peep of 
day — 

Nor any drooping flower 

Held sacred for thy bower, 
Wherever he may sport himself and play. 

" To Sorrow, 

I bade good morrow, 
And thought to leave her far away behind; 

But cheerly, cheerly, 

She loves me dearly ; 
She is so constant to me, and so kind : 

I would deceive her, 

And so leave her, 
But ah ! she is so constant and so kind. 

" Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side, 
I sat a weeping : in the whole world wide 
There was no one to ask me why I wept — 

And so I kept 
Brimming the water-lily cups with team 

Cold as my fears. 
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side, 
I sat a weeping : what enamoured bride, 
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds, 

But hides and shrouds 
Beneath dark palm-trees by a river side? 

4 And as I sat, over the light blue hills 
There came a n»ise of revellers : the rills 



126 ENDYMION. 

Into the wide stream came of purple hue — 

'Twas Bacchus and his crew ! 
The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills 
From kissing cymbals made a merry din — 

'Twas Bacchus and his kin ! 
Like to a moving vintage down they came, 
Crown'd with green leaves, and faces ah i& 

flame ; 
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley. 

To scare thee, Melancholy ! 
O then, O then, thou wast a simple name ! 
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly 
By shepherds is forgotten, when in June, 
Tall chestnuts keep away the sun and moon — 

I rush'd into the folly ! 

44 Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, 
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, 

With sidelong laughing ; 
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued 
His plump white arms, and shoulders, enough white 

For Venus* pearly bite ; 
And near him rode Silenus on his ass, 
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass 

Tipsily quaffing. 

44 Whence came ye, merry Damsels ! whence 

came ye, 
So many, and so many, and such glee ? 
Why have ye left your bowers desolate, 

Your lutes, and gentler fate ? 
4 We follow Bacchus ! Bacchus on the wing, 

A conquering ! 
Bacchus, young Bacchus ! good or ill betide, 
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide : — 
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be 

To 01 r wild minstrelsy ! ' 



BNDYMION. 1J7 

u Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs ! whence came ye, 
So many, and so many, and such glee ? 
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left 
Your nuts in oak-tree cleft ? — 

* For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree ; 
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms > 

And cold mushrooms ; 
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth ; 
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth ! 
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be 

To our mad minstrelsy ! ' 

u Over wide streams and mountains great we went 
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, 
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants, 

With Asian elephants : 
Onward these myriads — with song and dance, 
With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance, 
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, 
Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, 
Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil 
Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil : 
With toying oars and silken sails they glide, 

Nor care for wind and tide. 
Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes, 
From rear to van they scour about the plains ; 
A three days' journey in a moment done ; 
And always, at the rising of the sun, 
About the wilds they hunt with spear and harm 
On spleenful unicorn. 

* I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown 

Before the vine-wreath crown ! 
1 saw parch'd Abysskiia rouse and sing 

To the silver cymbals' ring ! 
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce 

Old Tartary the fierce 1 
The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail, 



1)8 ENDYMION. 

And from their treasures scatter pearled hail ; 
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans, 

And all his priesthood moans, 
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale 
Into these regions came I, following him, 
Sick-hearted, weary — so I took a whim 
To stray away into these forests drear, 

Alone, without a peer : 
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear. 

" Young Stranger ! 
I've been a ranger 

In search of pleasure throughout every clime 
Alas ! 'tis not for me : 
Bewitch'd I sure must be, 

To lose in grieving all my maiden prime. 

" Come then, Sorrow, 

Sweetest Sorrow! 
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breart 

I thought to leave thee, 

And deceive thee, 
But now of all the world I love thee beft. 

" There is not one, 

No, no, not one 
But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid ; 

Thou art her mother, 

And her brother, 
Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade/ 

O what a sigh she gave in finishing, 
And look, quite dead to every worldly thing 
Endvmion eonld not speak, but gazed on he' 
And'listen'd to the wind that now did stir 
About the crisped oaks full drearily, 
Yet with as sweet a softness as might be 
Remember'd from its velvet summer song. 



EhDYMlOV. lit 

A t last he saic : " Poor lady ! how thus lotg 

Have I been ible to endure that voice ? 

Fair Melody! kini Syren ! Fve no choice 

I must be thy sad servant evermore : 

I cannot choose but kneel here and adore. 

Alas, I must not think — by Phoebe, no ! 

Let me not think, soft Angel ! shall it be sc ? 

Say, beautifullest, shall I never think ? 

O thou couldst foster me beyond the brink 

Of recollection ! make my watchful care 

Close up its bloodshot eyes, nor see despair! 

Do gently murder half my soul, and I 

Shall feel the other half so utterly ! — 

I'm giddy at that cheek so fair and smooth ; 

O let it blush so ever : let it soothe 

My madness ! let it mantle rosy warm 

With the tinge of love, panting in safe alarm. 

This cannot be thy hand, and yet it is ; 

And this is sure thine other softling — this 

Thine own fair bosom, and I am so near 1 

Wilt fall asleep ? O let me sip that tear ! 

And whisper one sweet word that I may know 

This is this world — sweet dewy blossom ! " — Wob 

Woe I woe to that Endymion ! Where ii 

HE? — 

Even these ^ords went echoing dismally 
Through the wide forest — a most fearful tone, 
Like one repenting in his ta.'rst moan ; 
And while it died away a ^liade pass'd by, 
As of a thunder-cloud. When arrows fly 
Through the thick branches, poor ring-doves sleek 

forth 
Their timid necks and tremble ; so these both 
Leant to each other trembling, and sat so 
Waiting for some destruction — when lo ! 
Foot-feather'd Mercury appear'd sublime 
Beyond the tall tree tons ; and in less time 
iiiap shoors the slanted hail-storm, down he dropp I 
• 



ISO ENDYM10N. 

Towards the ground ; but rested not. nor stopp d 
One moment from his home : only the sward 
He with his wand light touch'd, and heavenward 
Swifter than sight was gone — even before 
The teeming earth a sudden witness bore 
Of his swift magic. Diving swans appear 
Above the crystal circlings white and clear ; 
And catch the cheated eye in wild surprise, 
How they can dive in sight and unseen rise — 
So from the turf outsprang two steeds jet-black. 
Each with large dark blue wings upon his back 
The youth of Caria placed the lovely dame 
On one, and felt himself in spleen to tame 
The other's fierceness. Through the air thev flew 
High as the eagles. Like two drops of dew 
Exhaled to Phoebus' lips, away they are gone, 
Far from the earth away — unseen, alone, 
Among cool clouds and winds, but that the free 
The buoyant life of song can floating be 
Above their heads, and follow them untired. 
Muse of my native land ! am I inspired ? 
This is the giddy air, and I must spread 
Wide pinions to keep here ; nor do I dread 
Or height, or depth, or width, or any chance 
Precipitous : I have beneath my glance 
Those towering horses and their mournful freight 
Could I thus sail, and see, and thus await 
Fearless for power of thought, without thine aid ? 
There is a sleepy dusk, an odorous shade 
From some approaching wonder, and behold 
Those winged steeds, with snorting nostrils bold 
Snuff at its faint extreme, and seem to tire, 
Dying to embers from their native fire 1 

Thsre curPd a purple mist around them ; soon, 
It seem'd as when around the pale new moon 
Sad Zephyr droops the clouds like weeping willow 
Twas Sleep slow journeying with head on pillow 



ENDYMION. Hi 

For the first time, since he came nigh dead-bom 

From the old womb of night, his cave forlorn 

Had he left more forlorn ; for the first time, 

He felt aloof the day and morning's prime — 

Because into his depth Cimmerian 

There came a dream, showing how a young man, 

Ere a lean bat could plump its wintry skin, 

Would at high Jove's empyreal footstool win 

An immortality, and how espouse 

Jove's daughter, and be reckon'd of his house. 

Now was he slumbering towards heaven's gate, 

That he might at the threshold one hour wait 

To hear the marriage melodies, and then 

Sink downward to his dusky cave again : 

His litter of smooth semilucent mist, 

Diversely tinged with rose and amethyst, 

Puzzled those eyes that for the centre sought; 

And scarcely for one moment could be caught 

His sluggish form reposing motionless. 

Those two on winged steeds, with all the street 

Of vision search'd for him, as one would look 

Athwart the sallows of a river nook 

To catch a glance at silver-throated eels, — 

Or from old Skiddaw's top, when fog concealf 

His rugged forehead in a mantle pale, 

With an eye-guess towards some pleasant vale, 

Descry a favourite hamlet faint and far. 

These raven horses, though they fostered axe 
Of earth's splenetic fire, dully drop 
Their full-vein'd ears, nostrils blood wide, and itop 
Upon the spiritless mist have they outspread 
Their ample feathers, are in slumber dead,— 
And on those pinions, level in mid-air, 
Endymion sleepeth and the lady fair. 
Slowly they sail, slowly as icy isle 
Upon a calm sea drifting : and meanwhile 
The mournful wanderer dreams. Behold ! be 



1« ENDYM10N 

On heaven's pavement, brotherly ne talks 

To divine powers : from his hand full fain 

Juno's proud birds are pecking pearly graifc 

He tries the nerve of Phoebus' golden bow, 

And asketh where the golden apples grow : 

Upon his arm he braces Pallas' shield, 

And strives in vain to unsettle and wield 

A Jovian thunderbolt : arch Hebe brings 

A full-brimm'd goblet, dances lightly, sings 

And tantalizes long ; at last he drinks, 

And lost in pleasure, at her feet he sinks, 

Touching with dazzled lips her starlight hand, 

He blows a bugle, — an ethereal band 

Are visible above : the Seasons four, — 

Green-kirtled Spring, flush Summer, golden store 

In Autumn's sickle, Winter frosty hoar, 

Join dance with shadowy Hours ; while still the blast 

In swells unmitigated, still doth last 

To sway their floating morris. " Whose is this ? 

Whose bugle ? " he inquires : they smile — " O Dis 

Why is this mortal here ? Dost thou not know 

Its mistress' lips ? Not thou ? — 'Tis Dian's : lo J 

She rises crescented ! " He looks, 'tis she, 

His very goddess : good-bye earth, and sea, 

And air, and pains, and care, and suffering ; 

Good-bye to all but love ! Then doth he spring 

Towards her, and awakes — and, strange, o'erhead, 

Of those same fragrant exhalations bred, 

Beheld awake his very dream : the gods 

Stood smiling ; merry Hebe laughs and nods ; 

And Phoebe bends towards him crescented. 

O state perplexing ! On the pinion bed, 

Too well awake, he feels the panting side 

Of his delicious lady. He who died 

For soaring too audacious in the sun, 

Where that same treacherous wr-x began to ran, 

Felt not more tongue-tied than Endymion 

His heart leapt up as U* its rightful throne, 



ENDYMON. m 

Ta that fair-shadow'd passion pulsed its way — 

Ah, what perplexity ! Ah, well a-day ! 

So fond, so beauteous was his bed-fellow, 

He could not help but kiss her : then he grew 

Awhile forgetful of all beauty save 

Young Phoebe's, goklen-hair'd ; and so 'ga*i craYC 

Forgiveness : yet he turn'd once more to look 

At the sweet sleeper, — all hip soul was shook, — 

She press'd his hand in slumber; so once more 

He could not help but kiss her and adore. 

At this the shadow wept, melting away. 

The Latmian started up : " Bright goddess, stay ! 

Search my most hidden breast ! By truth's owx 

tongue, 
I have no daedale heart ; why is it wrung 
To desperation ? Is there nought for me, 
Upon the bourne of bliss, but misery ?" 

These words awoke the stranger of dark tressef : 
Her dawning love-look rapt Endymion blesses 
With 'haviour soft. Sleep yawn'd from underneath 
" Thou swan of Ganges, let us no more breathe 
This murky phantasm ! thou contented seem'st 
Pillow'd in lovely idleness, nor dream'st 
What horrors may discomfort thee and me. 
Ah, shouldst thou die from my heart-treachery t-~ 
Yet did she merely weep — her gentle soul 
Hath no revenge in it ; as it is whole 
In tenderness, would I were whole in love > 
Can I prize thee, fair maid, all price above, 
Even when I feel as true as innocence 1 
I do, I do. — What is this soul then ? Whence 
Came it ? It does not seem my own, and I 
Have no self-passion or identity. 
Some fearful end must be ; where, where is it ? 
By Nemesis ! I see my spirit flit 
Alone about the dark — Forgive me, sweet ! 
Shall we away ? " He roused the steeds ; they 
bea* 



1S-4 ENDYMIOJ*. 

Their wings chivalrous into the clear air, 
Leaving old Sleep within his vapoury lair. 

The good-night blush of eve was waning slow, 
And Vesper, risen star, began to throe 
In the dusk heavens silvery, when they 
Thus sprang direct towards the Galaxy. 
Nor did speed hinder converse soft and strange — 
Eternal oaths and vows they interchange, 
In such wise, in such temper, so aloof 
Up in the winds, beneath a starry roof, 
So witless of their doom, that verily 
Tis well nigh past man's search their hearts to see \ 
Whether they wept, or laugh'd, or grieved, or 

toytt — 
Most like with joy gone mad, with sorrow cloy\L 

Pull facing their swift flight, from ebon streak, 
The moon put forth a little diamond peak, 
No bigger than an unobserved star, 
Or tiny point of fairy scimetar ; 
Bright signal that she only stoop'd to tie 
Her silver sandals, ere deliciously 
She bow'd into the heavens her timid head. 
Slowly she rose, as though she would have fled, 
While to his lady meek the Carian turn'd, 
To mark if her dark eyes had yet discern'd 
This beauty in its birth — Despair ! despair ! 
He saw her body fading gaunt and spare 
In the cold moonshine. Straight he seized her wrkt 
It melted from his grasp ; her hand he kiss'd, 
And, horror ! kiss'd his own — he was alone. 
Her steed a little higher soarM, and then 
Dropt hawk-wise to the earth. 

There lies a den, 
Beyond the seeming confines of the space 
Made for the soul to wander in and trace 



ENDYMION. IS* 

Its own existence, of remotest glooms. 
Dark regions are around it, where the tombs 
Of buried griefs the spirit sees, but scarce 
One hour doth linger weeping, for the pieroe 
Of new-born woe it feels more inly smart : 
And in these regions many a venom'd dart 
At random flies ; they are the proper home 
Of every ill : the man is yet to come 
Who hath not journev'd in this native hell. 
But few have ever felt how calm and well 
Sleep may be had in that deep den of all. 
There anguish does not sting, nor pleasure pall ; 
Woe-hurricanes beat ever at the gate, 
Yet all is still within and desolate. 
Beset with painful gusts, within ye hear 
No sound so loud as when on curtain'd bier 
The death-watch tick is stifled. Enter none 
Who strive therefore ; on the sudden it is won 
Just when the sufferer begins to burn, 
Then it is free to him ; and from an urn, 
Still fed by melting ice, he takes a draught — 
Young Semele such richness never quafrd 
In her maternal lcnging. Happy gloom ! 
Dark Paradise ! where pale becomes the bloom 
Of health fey due ; where silence dreariest 
Is most articulate ; where hopes infest ; 
Where those eyes are the brightest far that keep 
Their lids shut longest in a dreamless sleep. 
O happy spirit-home ! O wondrous soul I 
Pregnant with such a den to save the whole 
In thine own depth. Hail, gentle Carian ! 
For, never since thy griefs and woes began, 
Hast thou felt so content : a grievous feud 
Hath led thee to this Cave of Quietude. 
Ay, his luli'd soul was there, although upborne 
With dangerous speed : and so he did not 
Because he knew not whither he was going. 
So happy was he, not the aerial blowing 



136 ENDYMION* 

Of trumpets at clear parley from the east 
Could rouse from that fine relish, that high feast. 
They stung the feather'd horse ; with fierce alarm 
He flapp'd towards the sound. Alas ! no charm 
Could lift Endymion's head, or he had view'd 
A skyey mask, a pinion'd multitude, — 
And silvery was its passing : voices sweet 
Warbling the while as if to lull and greet 
The wanderer in his path. Thus warbled they, 
While past the vision went in bright array. 

" Who, who from Dian's feast would be away ? 
For all the golden bowers of the day 
Are empty left ? Who, who away would be 
From Cynthia's wedding and festivity ? 
Not Hesperus : lo ! upon his silver wings 
He leans away for highest heaven and sings, 
Snapping his lucid fingers merrily ! — 
Ah, Zephyrus ! art here, and Flora too ? 
Ye tender bibbers of the rain and dew, 
Young playmates of the rose and daffodil, 
Be careful, ere ye enter in, to fill 

Your baskets high 
With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines- 
Savory latter-mint, and columbines, 
Cool parsley, basil sweet, and sunny thyme ; 
Yea, every flower and leaf of every clime, 
All gather'd in the dewy morning : hie 

Away ! fly, fly ! — 
Crystalline brother of the belt of heaven, 
Aquarius ! to whom king Jove has given 
Two liquid pulse streams 'stead of feather'd wings, 
Two fanlike fountains, — thine illuminings 

For Dian play : 
Dissolve the frozen purity of air ; 
Let thy white shoulders silvery and bare 
Show cold through watery pinions; make more 

bright 



END YM 10 J*. lit 

The Star- (Queen's crescent on her marriage night 

Haste, haste away ! 
Castor has tamed the planet Lion, see ! 
And of the Bear has Pollux mastery: 
A third is in the race ! who is the third, 
Speeding away swift as the eagle bird ? 

The ramping Centaur ! 
The Lion's mane 's on end : the Bear how fierce ! 
The Centaur's airow ready seems to pierce 
Some enemy : far forth his bow is bent 
Into the blue of heaven. He'll be shent, 

Pale unrelentor, 
When he shall hear the wedding lutes a playing. — 
Andromeda ! sweet woman ! why delaying 
So timidly among the stars : come hither ! 
Join this bright throng, and nimbly follow whither 

They all are going. 
Danae's Son, before Jove newly bow'd, 
Has wept for thee, calling to Jove aloud. 
Thee, gentle lady, did he disenthrall : 
Ye shall for ever live and love r for all 

Thy tears are flowing. — 
By Daphne's fright, behold Apollo ! " — 

More 

Endyinion heard not : down his *steed him bore, 
Prone to the green head of a misty hill. 

His first touch of the earth went nigh to kill. 
u Alas ! " said he, " were I but always borne 
Through dangerous winds, had but my footstep* 

worn 
A path in hell, for ever would I bless 
Horrors which nourish an uneasiness 
For my own sullen conquering ; to him 
Who lives beyond earth's boundary, grief is dim, 
Sorrow is but a shadow : now I see 
The grass ; I feel the solid ground — Ah, me I 



I S3 ENDYMION. 

[t is thy voice — divinest ! Where ? — who ? wbi 

Left thee so quiet on this bed of dew ? 

Behold upon this happy earth we are ; 

Let us aye love each other ; let us fare 

On forest-fruits, and never, never go 

Among the abodes of mortals here below, 

Or be by phantoms duped. O destiny ! 

Into a labyrinth now my soul would fly, 

But with thy beauty will I deaden it. 

Where didst thou melt to ? By thee will I sit 

For ever : let our fate stop here — a kid 

I on this spot will offer : Pan will bid 

Us live in peace, in love and peace among 

His forest wildernesses. I have clung 

To nothing, loved a nothing, nothing seen 

Or felt but a great dream ! Oh, I have been 

Presumptuous against love, against the sky, 

Against all elements, against the tie 

Of mortals each to each, against the blooms 

Of flowers, rush of rivers, and the tombs 

Of heroes gone ! Against his proper glory 

Has my own soul conspired : so my story 

Will I to children utter, and repent. 

There never lived a mortal man, who bent 

His appetite beyond his natural sphere, 

But starved and died. My sweetest Indian, here, 

Here will I kneel, for thou redeemed hast 

My life from too thin breathing : gone and past 

Are cloudy phantasms. Caverns lone, farewell ! 

And air of visions, and the monstrous swell 

Of visionary seas ! No, never more 

Shall airy voices cheat me to the shore 

Of tangled wonder, breathless and aghast. 

Adieu, my daintiest Dream ! although so vast 

My love is still for thee. The hour may come 

When we shall meet in pure elysium. 

On earth I may not love thee, and therefore 

Doves will I offer up, and sweetest store 



mm* *■ mion. i w 

All thrcmgti ^ ^r**i*£ year : so thou wilt shine 
On me, and a this d*»*L*c2 fair of mine, 
And bleas on simple liv^j. My Indian bliss ! 
My river-lily bud I one haman kiss ! 
One sigh of real breath — one gentle squeeze, 
Warm as a dove's nest among summer trees, 
And warm with dew at ooze from living blood ! 
Whither didst melt ? Ah, what of that ! — all good 
We'll talk about — no more of dreaming. — Now, 
Where shall our dwelling be ? Under the brow 
Of some steep mossy hill, where ivy dun 
Would hide us up, although spring leaves were 

none ; 
And where dark yew-trees, us we rustle through, 
Will drop their scarlet-berry cups of dew ! 
O thou would'st joy to live in such a place I 
Dusk for our loves, yet light enough to grace 
Those gentle limbs on mossy bed reclined : 
For by one step the blue sky shouldst thou find, 
And by another, in deep deli below, 
See, through the trees, a little river go 
All in its mid-day gold and glimmering. 
Honey from out the gnarled hive I'll bring, 
And apples, wan with sweetness, gather thee, — 
Cresses that grow where no man may them see, 
And sorrel untorn by the dew-claw'd stag : 
Pipes will I fashion of the syrinx flag, 
That thou mayst always know whither I roam, 
When it shall please thee in our quiet home 
To listen and think of love. Still let me speak t 
Still let me dive into the joy I seek, — 
For yet the past doth prison me. The rill, 
Thou haply mayst delight in, will I fill 
With fairy fishes from the mountain tarn, 
And thou shalt feed them from the squirrel's barn 
Its bottom will I strew with amber shells, 
And pebbles blue from deep enchanted wells. 
lis sides I'll plant with dew-sweet eglantine, 



140 ENDTMIOJS. 

And honeysuckles full of clear bee-wine. 

I will entice this crystal rill to trace 

Love's silver name upon tbe meadow's face. 

I'll kneel to Yesta, for a name of fire ; 

And to god Phoebus, for a golden lyre ; 

To Empress Dian, for a hunting-spear; 

To Vesper, for a taper silver-clear, 

That I may see thy beauty through the night , 

To Flora, and a nightingale shall light 

Tame on thy finger ; to the River-gods 

And they shall bring thee taper fishing-rods 

Of gold, and lines of naiads' long bright tress. 

Heaven shield thee for thine utter loveliness ! 

Thy mossy footstool shall the altar be 

'Fore which I'll bend, bending, dear love, to thee ; 

Those lips shall be my Delphos, and shall speak 

Laws to my footsteps, colour to my cheek, 

Trembling or steadfastness to this "same voice, 

And of three sweetest pleasurings the choice: 

And that affectionate light, those diamond things, 

Those eyes, those passions, those supreme pear] 

springs, 
Shall be my grief, or twinkle me to pleasure. 
Say, is not bliss within our perfect seizure V 
Oh that I could not doubt ! " 

The mountaineer i 
Thus strove by fancies vain and crude to clear 
His brier'd path to some tranquillity. 
It gave bright gladness to his lady's eye, 
And yet the tears she wept were tears of sorrow 
Answering thus, just as the golden morrow 
Beam'd upward from the valleys cf the east : 
" O that the flutter of his heart had ceased, 
Or the sweet name of love had pass'd awaj I 
Young feather'd tyrant ! by a swift decay 
Wilt thou devote this body to the earth 
And I do think that at my very birth 



EN DY MI ON. 141 

I lisp'd thy blooming titles inwardly ; 

For at the first, first dawn and thought of thee, 

With uplift hands I bless'd the stars of heaven. 

Art thou not cruel ? ever have I striven 

To think thee kind, but ah, it will not do ! 

When yet a child, I heard that kisses drew 

Favour from thee, and so I kisses gave 

To the void air, bidding them find out love : 

But when I came to feel how far above 

All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood, 

All earthly pleasure, all imagined good, 

Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss, — 

Even then that moment, at the thought of this, 

Fainting I fell into a bed of flowers, 

And languished there three days. Ye milder 

powers, 
Am I not cruelly wrong'd ? Believe, believe 
Me, dear Endymion, were I to weave 
With my own fancies garlands of sweet life, 
Thou should'st be one of all. Ah, bitter strife ! 
I may not be thy love : I am forbidden — 
Indeed I am — thwarted, affrighted, chidden, 
By things I trembled at, and gorgon wrath. 
Twice hast thou ask'd whither I went : hencefortk 
Ask me no more I I may not utter it, 
Nor may I be thy love. We might commit 
Ourselves at once to vengeance : we might die ; 
We might embrace and die : voluptuous thought 1 
Enlarge not to my hunger, or I'm caught 
In trammels of perverse delieiousness. 
No, no, that shall not be : thee will I bless, 
And bid a long adieu." 

The Carian 
No word return'd : both lovelorn, silent, wan, 
Into the valleys green together went 
Far wandering, they were perforce content 
To sit beneath a fair lone beechen tree ; 



142 END TM ION 

Nor at eacb other gazed, but heavily 
Pored on its hazel cirque of shedded leave* 

Endymion ! unhappy ! it nigh grieves 
Me to behold thee thus in last extreme : 
Enskied ere this, but truly that I deem 
Truth the best music in a first-born song. 
Thy lute-voice'd brother will I sing ere long, 
And thou shalt aid — hast thou not aided me t 
Yes, moonlight Emperor ! felicity 
Has been thy meed for many thousand years ; 
Yet often have 1, on the brink of tears, 
Mourn'd as if yet thou wert a forester ; — 
Forgetting the old tale. 

He did not stir 
His eyes from the dead leaves, or one small poise 
Of joy he might have felt. The spirit culls 
Unfaded amaranth, when wild it strays 
Through the old garden-ground of boyish days. 
A little onward ran the very stream 
By which he took his first soft poppy dream; 
And on the very bark 'gainst which he leant 
A crescent he had carved, and round it spent 
His skill in little stars. The teeming tree 
Had swoll'n and green'd the pious character^, 
But not ta'en out. Why, there was not a slope 
Up which he had not fear'd the antelope ; 
And not a tree, beneath whose rooty shade 
He had not with his tamed leopards playM ; 
Nor could an arrow light, or javelin, 
Fly in the air where his had never been — * 
And yet he knew it not. 

O treachery ! 
Why does his lady smile, pleasing her eye 
With all his sorrowing ? He sees her not. 
But who so stares on him ? His sister sure 



ENDYMION. lU 

Peona of the woods ! — Can she endure ? — 
Impossible — how dearly they embrace ! 
His lady smiles ; delight is in her face ; 
It is no treachery. 

" Dear brother mine ! 
Endymion, weep not so ! Why should'st thou pint 
When all great Latmos so exalt will be ? 
Thank the great gods, and look not bitterly ; 
And speak not one pale word, and sigh no more. 
Sure I will not believe thou hast such store 
Of grief, to last thee to my kiss again. 
Thou surely canst not bear a mind in pain, 
Come hand in hand with one so beautiful. 
Be happy both of you ! for I will pull 
The flowers of autumn for your coronals. 
Pan's holy priest for young Endymion calls ; 
And when he is restored, thou, fairest dame, 
Shalt be our queen. Now, is it not a shame 
To see ye thus, — not very, very sad ? 
Perhaps ye are too happy to be glad : 
O feel as if it were a common day ; 
Free-voiced as one who never was away. 
No tongue shall ask, whence come ye? but yi 

shall 
Be gods of your own rest imperial. 
Not even I, for one whole month will pry 
Into the hours that have pass'd us by, 
Since in my arbour I did sing to thee. 
O Hermes ! on this very night will be 
A hymning up to Cynthia, queen of light ; 
For the soothsayers old saw yesternight 
Good visions in the air, — whence will befall, 
As say these sages, health perpetual 
To shepherds and their flocks ; and furthermore, 
In Dian's face they read the gentle lore : 
Therefore for her these vesper-carols are. 
Our friends will all be there from nigh and far 



144 ENDTMION. 

Many upon thy death have ditties made , 

And many, even now, their foreheads shade 

With cypress, on a day of sacrifice. 

New singing for our maids shalt thou devise, 

And pluck the sorrow from our huntsmen's brows, 

Tell me, my lady-queen, how to espouse 

This wayward brother to his rightful joys ! 

His eyes are on thee bent, as thou didst poise 

His fate most goddess-like. Help me, I pray, 

To lure — Endymion, dear brother, say 

What ails thee ? " He could bear no more, and <*. 

Bent his soul fiercely like a spiritual bow, 

And twang'd it inwardly, and calmly said : 

" I would have thee my only friend, sweet maid I 

My only visitor ! not ignorant though, 

That those deceptions which for pleasure go 

'Mong men, are pleasures real as real may be : 

But there are higher ones I may not see, 

If impiously an earthly realm I take. 

Since I saw thee, I have been wide awake 

Night after night, and day by day, until 

Of the empyrean I have drunk my fill. 

Let it content thee, Sister, seeing me 

More happy than betides mortality. 

A hermit young, I'll live in mossy cave, 

Where thou alone shalt come to me, and lave 

Thy spirit in the wonders I shall tell. 

Through me the shepherd realm shall prosper well 

For to thy tongue will I all health confide. 

And for my sake, let this young maid abide 

With thee as a dear sister. Thou alone, 

Peona, mayst return to me. I own 

This may sound strangely : but when, dearest girl, 

Thou seest it for my happiness, no pearl 

Will trespass down those cheeks. Companion fair 

Wilt be content to dwell with her, to share 

This sister's love with me ? " Like one resign'd 

And bent by circumstances, and thereby blind 



ENDYMION. Vt 

In self-commitineiit, thus, that meek unknown 

M Ay, but a buzzing by my ears has flown, 

Of jubilee to Dian : — truth 1 beard ! 

Well then, I see there is no little bird, 

Tender soever, but is Jove's own care. 

Long have I sought for rest, and unaware, 

Behold I find it ! so exalted too ! 

So after mv own heart ! I knew, I knew 

There was a place untenanted in it ; 

In that same void white Chastity shall sit, 

And monitor me nightly to lone slumber. 

With sanest lips I vow me to the number 

Of Dian's sisterhood ; and kind lady, 

With thy good help, this very night shall see 

My future days to her fane consecrate." 

As feels a dreamer what doth most create 
His own particular fright, so these three fel 
Or like one who, in after ages, knelt 
To Lucifer or Baal, when he'd pine 
After a little sleep : or when in mine 
Far under-ground, a sleeper meets his frieno- 
Who know him not. Each diligently bends 
Towards common thoughts and things for v**> 

fear ; 
Striving their ghastly malady to cheer, 
By thinking it a thing of yes and no, 
That housewives talk of. But the spirit-blow 
Was struck, and all were dreamers. At the last 
Endymion said : " Are not our fates all cast? 
Why stand we here ? Adieu, ye tender pair ! 
Adieu ! " Whereat those maidens, with wild star* 
Walk'd dizzily away. Pained and hot 
His eyes went after them, until they got 
Near to a cypress grove, whose deadly maw, 
In one swift moment, would what then he saw 
Engulf for ever. " Stay," he cried, " ah, stay ! 
Turn damsels ! hist ! one word I have to say : 
10 



46 END YM ION. 

Sweet Indian, I would see thee once again. 

It is a thing I dote on : so I'd fain, 

Peona, ye should hand in hand repair, 

Into those holy groves that silent are 

Behind great Dian's temple. I'll be yon, 

At Vesper's earliest twinkle — they are gone — 

But once, once, once again — " At this he prest 

His hands against his face, and then did rest 

His head upon a mossy hillock green 

And so remain'd as he a corpse had been 

All the long day ; save when he scantly lifted 

His eyes abroad, to see how shadows shifted 

With the slow move of time, — sluggish and weary 

Until the poplar tops, in journey dreary, 

Had reach'd the river's brim. Then up he rose, 

And, slowly as that very river flows, 

Walked towards the temple-grove with this lamen' 

" Why such a golden eve ? The breeze is sent 

Careful and soft, that not a leaf may fall 

Before the serene father of them all 

Bows down his summer head below the west. 

Now am I of breath, speech, and speed possest, 

But at the setting I must bid adieu 

To her for the last time. Night will strew 

On the damp grass myriads of lingering leaves, 

And with them shall I die ; nor much it grieves 

To die, when summer dies on the cold sward. 

Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord 

Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies, 

Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbour-roses ; 

My kingdom 's at its death, and just it is 

That I should die with it : so in all this 

We miscall grief, bale, sorrow, heart-break, woe, 

What is there to plain of? By Titan's foe 

1 am but rightly served." So saying, he 

Tripp'd lightly on, in sort of deathful glee ; 

Laughing at the cle-ar stream and setting sun, 

As though they jests had been : ~or had he dona 



END7MI0N. 141 

His laugh at nature's holy countenance, 

Until that grove appear'd, as if perchance, 

And then his tongue with sober seerulihed 

Gave utterance as he enter'd : " Ha ! " he said, 

11 King of the butterflies ; but by this gloom, 

And by old Rhadamanthus , tongue of doom, 

This dusk religion, pomp of solitude, 

And the Promethean clay by thief endued, 

By old Saturn us' forelock, by his head 

Shook with eternal palsy, I did wed 

Myself to things of light from infancy ; 

And thus to be cast out, thus lown to die, 

Is sure enough to make a mortal man 

Grow impious." So he inwardly began 

On things for which no wording can be found ; 

Deeper and deeper sinking, until drown'd 

Beyond the reach of music : for the choir 

Of Cynthia he heard not, though rough brier 

Nor muffling thicket interposed to dull 

The Vesper hymn, far swollen, soft md full, 

Through the dark pillars of those sylvan aisles. 

He saw not the two maidens, nor their smiles, 

Wan as primroses gather'd at midnight 

By chilly-finger'd spring. Unhappy wight ! 

" Endymion 1" said Peona, " we are here ! 

What wouldst thou ere we all are laid on bier? " 

Then he embraced her, and his lady's hand 

Press'd, saying : " Sister, I would have command- 

If it were heaven's will, on our sad fate." 

At which that dark-eyed stranger stood elate 

And said, in a new voice, but sweet as love, 

To Endymion's amaze : " By Cupid's dove, 

And so thou shalt ! and by the lily truth 

Of my own breast thou shalt, beloved youth ! " 

And as she spake, into her face there came 

Light, as reflected from a silver flame : 

Her long black hair swell'd ampler, in display 

Full golden ; in her eyes a brighter day 



148 ENDYMtOX 

DawnM blue, and full of love, kye, he beheld 
Phcebe, his passion ! joyous she upheld 
Her lucid bow, continuing thus : " Drear, drear 
Has our delaying been ; but foolish fear 
Withheld rne first ; and then decrees of fate ; 
And then 'twas fit that from this mortal state 
Thou shouldst, my love, by some unlook'd-foi 

change 
Be spiritualized. Peona, we shall range 
These forests, and to thee they safe shall be 
As was thy cradle ; hither shalt thou flee 
To meet us many a time." Next Cynthia bright 
Peona kiss'd, and bless'd with fair good night : 
Her brother kiss'd her too, and knelt adown 
Before his goddess, in a blissful swoon. 
She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, 
Before three swiftest kisses he had told, 
They vanished far away ! — Peona went 
Home through the gloomy wood m wonderment 




LAMIA. 



PART I. 



UPON a time, before the faery broods 
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous 
woods, 
Before Kins: Oberon's bright diadem, 
Sceptre, and mantle, elasp'd with dewy gem, 
frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns 
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslipp'd 

lawns, 
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left 
His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft : 
From high Olympus had he stolen light, 
On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight 
Of his great summoner, and made retreat 
Into a forest on the shores of Crete. 
For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt 
A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt ; 
At whose white feet the languid Tritons pour'O 
Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored 
Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wort 
And in those meads where someHmes she migb 

haunt, 
Were strewn ric 1 gifts, unknown to any Muse, 
Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. 
\h, what a world of love was at her feet ! 
60 Hermes thought, and a celestial heat 
Burn'd from his winged heels to either ear, 
That from a whiteness, as the lily clear, 
Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair, 
Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare 
From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew, 



150 LAMIA 

Breathing upon the flowers his passion new, 

And wound with many a river to its head, 

To find where this sweet n\mph prepared hei 

secret bed : 
In vain ; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found, 
And so he rested, on the lonely ground, 
Pensive, and full of painful jealousies 
Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees. 
There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice, 
Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys 
All pain but pity : thus the lone voice spake : 
" When from this wreathed tomb shall 1 awake I 
When move in a sweet body fit for life, 
And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife 
Of hearts and lips ! Ah, miserable me ! " 
The God, dove-footed, glided silently 
Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speei, 
The taller grasses and full-flowering weed, 
Until he found a palpitating snake, 
Bright, and cirq«ue-couchant in a dusky brake. 

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, 
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue ; 
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, 
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd ; 
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, 
Dissolved, or brighter shone, or interwreathed 
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries — 
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries, 
She seem'd at once, some penanced lady elt, 
Sume demon's mistress, or the demon's self. 
Upon her crest she wore a warmish fire 
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar : 
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet ! 
She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls com- 
plete : 
And for her eyes — what could such eyes do there 
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair ? 



LAMIA. 151 

As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air. 
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake 
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love's sake> 
And thus ; while Hermes on his pinions lay, 
Like a stoop'd falcon ere he takes his prey : 

" Fair Hermes 1 crown'd with feathers, fluttering 
light, 
1 tad a splendid dream of thee last night : 
I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold, 
Among the Gods, upon Olympus old, 
The only sad oue ; for thou didst not hear 
The soft, lute-finger'd Muses chanting clear, 
Nor even Apollo when he sang alone, 
Deaf to his throbbing throat's long, long melodious 

moan. 
I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes, 
Break amorous through the clouds, as morning 

breaks, 
And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart, 
Strike for the Cretan isle ; and here thou art ! 
Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid?" 
Whereat the star of Lethe not delay'd 
His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired : 
" Thou smooth-lipp'd serpent, surely high-inspired ! 
Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes, 
Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise, 
Telling me only where my nymph is fled, — 
Where she doth breathe 1 " " Bright planet, thou 

hast said," 
Return'd the snake, u but seal with oaths, fair God 1 " 
" I swear," said Hermes, " by my serpent rod,^ 
And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown !" 
Light flew his earnest words, among the blossomi 

blown. 
Then thus again the brilliance feminine : 
" Too frail of heart I for this lost nymph of thine, 
Free as the air, invHbly, she strays 



158 LAMIA. 

About these thornless wilds ; her pleasant day§ 

She tastes unseen ; unseen her nimble feet 

Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet : 

From weary tendrils, and bow'd branches green, 

SIk plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen : 

And by my power is her beauty veiPd 

To keep it unaffronted, unassail'd 

By the love-glances of unlovely eyes, 

Of Satyrs, Fauns, and blear'd Silenus' sighs. 

Pals grew her immortality, for woe 

Of all these lovers, and she grieved so 

I took compassion on her, bade her steep 

Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep 

Her loveliness invisible, yet free 

To wander as she loves, in liberty. 

Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone, 

If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon ! * 

Then, once again, the charmed God began 

An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran 

Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian. * 

Ravish'd she lifted her (Jircean head, 

Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said, 

" I was a woman, let me have once more 

A woman's shape, and charming as before. 

I love a youth of Corinth — O the bliss 1 

Give me my woman's form, and place me where he it 

Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow, 

And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now." 

The God on half-shut feathers sank serene, 

She breathed upon his eyes, and swift was seen 

Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the 

green. 
It was no dream ; or saj a dream it was, 
Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass 
Their pleasures in a long immortal dream. 
One warm, flush'd moment, hovering, it might seem 
Dash'd by the wood-nymph's beauty, so he burn'd 
Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn'd 



LAMIA. 15S 

To the swoon'd serpent, and with languid arm, 

Delieate, put to proof the lithe Caducean charm 

So done, upon the nymph his eyes he beat 

Full of adoring tears and blandishment, 

And towards her stept : she, like a moon in wane, 

Faded before him, cower'd, nor could restrain 

Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower 

That faints into itself at evening hour : 

But the God fostering her chilled hand, 

She felt the warmth, her eyelids open'd bland, 

And, like new flowers at morning song of bees, 

Bloom'd, and gave up her honey to the lees. 

Into the green-recessed woods they flew ; 

Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do. 

Left to herselt the serpent now began 
To change ; her elfin blood in madness ran, 
Her mouth foam'd, and the grass, therewith besprent 
Wither'd at dew so sweet and virulent ; 
Her eyes in torture fix'd, and anguish drear, 
Hot, glazed, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear, 
Flash'd phosphor and sharp sparks, without on* 

cooling tear. 
The colours all inflamed throughout her train, 
She writhed about, convulsed with scarlet pain : 
A deep vokanian yellow took the place 
Of all her milder-mooned body's grace ; 
And, as the lava ravishes the mead, 
Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede : 
Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars 
Eclipsed her crescents, and lick'd up her starg : 
So tha% in moments few, she was undrest 
Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst, 
And rubious-argent: of all these bereft, 
Nothing but pain and ugliness were left. 
Still shone her crown ; that vanish'd, also ghe 
Melted and disappeared as suddenly ; 
And in the air, her new voice luting soft, 



1 54 LAM I A, 

Cried, " Lycius 1 gentle Lycius ! " — borne aloft 
With the bright mists about the mountains hoar 
These words dissolved: Crete's forests heard a* 
more. 

Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright, 
A full-born beauty new and exquisite ? 
She fled into that valley they pass o'er 
Who go to Corinth from C euchre as' shore ; 
And rested at the foot of those wild hills, 
The rugged founts of the Peraean rills, 
And of that other ridge whose barren back 
Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack, 
South-westward to Cleone. There she stood 
About a young bird's flutter from a wood, 
Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread, 
By a clear pool, wherein she passioned 
To see herself escaped from so sore ills, 
While her robes flaunted with the daffodils. 

Ah, happy Lycius ! — for she was a maid 
Vlore beautiful t^an ever twisted braid, 
Or sigh'd, or blush'd, or on spring-flower'd lea 
Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy : 
& virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore 
Of love deep learned to the red heart's core : 
Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain 
To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain , 
Define their pettish limits, and estrange 
Their points of contact, and swift counts rchangc 
Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart 
Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art ; 
As though in Cupid's college she had spent 
Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent, 
And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment 

Why this fair creature chose so fairily 
By the wayside to linger, we phall see ■ 



LAMIA. 151 

But first 'tis fit to tell how she could muse 

And dream* when in the serpent prison-house, 

Of all she list, strange or magnificent : 

How, ever, where she will'd, her spirit went ; 

Whether to faint Elysium, or where 

Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair 

Wind into Thetis' bower by many a pearly stair; 

Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine, 

Stretch'd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine ; 

Or where in Pluto's gardens palatine 

Mulciber's columns gleam in far piazzian line. 

And sometimes into cities she would send 

Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend ; 

And once, wkile among mortals dreaming thus, 

She saw the young Corinthian Lycius 

Charioting foremost in the envious race, 

Like a young Jove with calm uneager face, 

And fell into a swooning love of him. 

Now on the moth-time of that evening dim 

He would return that way, as well she knew, 

To Corinth from the shore ; for freshly blew 

The eastern soft wind, and his galley now 

Grated the quay-stones with her brazen prow 

In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle 

Fresh anchorM ; whither he had been awhile 

To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there 

Waits with high marble doors for blood and ir» 

cense rare. 
Jove heard his vows, and better'd his desire ; 
For by some freak ful chance he made retire 
From his companions, and set forth to walk, 
Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk : 
Over the solitary hills he fared, 
Thoughtless, at first, but ere eve's star appear'd 
His phantasy was lost, where reason fades, 
In the calm'd twilight of Platonic shades. 
Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near — 
Close to her passing, in indifference drear, 



156 LAMIA. 

His silent sandals swept the mossy green \ 

So neighbour'd to him, and yet so unseen 

She stood : he pass'd, shut up in mysteries, 

His mind wrapp'd like his mantle, while her eyes 

Follow'd his steps, and her neck regal white 

Turn'd — syllabling thus, " Ah, Lycius bright ! 

And will you leave me on the hills alone r 

Lycius, look back ! and be some pity shown." 

He did ; not with cold wonder fearingly, 

But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice ; 

For so delicious were the words she sung, 

It seem'd he had loved them a whole summer long 

And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up, 

Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup, 

And still the cup was full, — while he, afraid 

Lest she should vanish ere his lips had paid 

Due adoration, thus began to adore ; 

Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain s<3 

sure: 
" Leave thee alone ! Look back ! Ah, Goddess, se€ 
Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee I 
For pity do not this sad heart belie — 
Even as thou vanishest so I shall die. 
Stay ' though a Naiad of the rivers, stay ! 
To thy far wishes will thy streams obey : 
Stay ! though the greenest woods be thy domain, 
Alone they can drink up the morning rain : 
Though a descended Pleiad, will not one 
Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune 
Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine 9 
So sweetly to these ravish'd ears of mine 
Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst 

fade, 
Thy memory will waste me to a shade : — 
For pity do not melt ! " — " If I should stay/' 
Said Lamia, " here, upon this floor of clay, 
And pain my steps upon these flowers too rough. 
What canst thou say or do of charm enough 



LAMIA. 157 

To dull the nice remembrance of my home ? 
Thou canst not ask me with thee here to roam 
)ver these hills and vales, where no joy is, — 
Empty of immortality and bliss ! 
Thou art a scholar, Lycius, and must know 
That finer spirits cannot breathe below 
In human climes, and live : Alas ! poor youth, 
What taste of purer air hast thou to soothe 
My essence ? What serener palaces, 
Where I may all my many senses please, 
And by mysterious sleights a hundred thirsts ap 

pease ; 
It cannot be — Adieu ! " So said, she rose 
Tiptoe with white arms spread. He, sick to lose 
The amorous promise of her lone complain, 
Swoon'd murmuring of love, and pale with pain 
The cruel lady, without any show 
Of sorrow for her tender favourite's woe, 
But rather, if her eyes could brighter be, 
With brighter eyes and slow amenity, 
Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh 
The life she had so tangled in her mesh : 
And as he from one trance, was wakening 
Into another, she began to sing, 
Happy in beauty, life, and love, and everything, 
A song of Iovp, too sweet for earthly lyres, 
VVhile, like held breath, the stars drew in theii 

panting fires. 
And then she whisper'd in such trembling tone, 
As those who, safe together met alone 
.For the first time through many anguish'd days, 
Use other speech than looks ; bidding him raise 
His drooping head, and clear his soul of doubt, 
For that she was a woman, and without 
Any more subtle fluid in her veins 
Than throbbing blood, and that the self-same paint 
Inhabited her frail-strung heart as his. 
And next she wonder'd how his eyes could 



158 LAMIA. 

Her face so long in Corinth, where, she said, 
She dwelt but half retired, and there had led 
Days happy as the gold coin could invent 
Without the aid of love ; yet in content 
Till she saw him, as once she pass'd him by, 
Where 'gainst a column he leant thoughtfully 
At Venus , temple porch, 'mid baskets heap'd 
Of amorous herbs and flowers, newly reap'd 
Late on that eve, as 'twas the night before 
The Adonian feast ; whereof she saw no more, 
But wept alone those days, for why should shf 

adore ? 
Lycius from death awoke into amaze, 
To see her still, and singing so sweet lays; 
Then from amaze into delight he fell 
To hear her whisper woman's lore so well ; 
And every word she spake enticed him on 
To unperplex'd delight and pleasure known. 
Let the mad poets say whate'er they please 
Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses, 
There is not such a treat among them all, 
Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall, 
As a real woman, lineal indeed 
From Pyrrha's pebbles or old Adam's seed. 
Thus gentle Lamia judged, and judged aright, 
That Lycius could not love in half a fright, 
So threw the goddess off, and won his heart 
More pleasantly by playing woman's part, 
With no more awe than what her beauty gave. 
That, while it smote, still guaranteed to save. 
Lycius to all made eloquent reply, 
Marrying to every word a twin-born sigh ; 
And last, pointing to Corinth, ask'd her sweet, 
If 'twas too far that night for her soft feet 
The way was short, for Lamia's eagerness 
Made, by a spell, the triple league decrease 
To a few paces ; not at all surmised 
By blinded Lycius, so in her comprised 



LAMIA. lft| 

They pass'd the city gates, he knew not how, 
So noiseless, and he never thought to know. 

As men talk in a dream, so Corinth all, 
Throughout her palaces imperial, 
And all her populous streets and temples lewd, 
Mutter'd, like tempest in the distance brew'd, 
To the wide-spreaded night above her towers. 
Men, women, rich and poor, in the cool hours, 
Shuffled their sandals o'er the pavement white, 
Companion'd or alone ; while many a light 
Flared, here and therfi, from wealthy festivals, 
And threw their moving shadows on the walls, 
Or found them cluster'd in the corniced shade 
Of some arch'd temple door, or dusky colonnade 

Muffling his face, of greeting friends in fear, 
Her fingers he press'd hard, as one came near 
With curl'd gray beard, sharp eyes, and cmootl 

bald crown, 
Slow-steppM, and robed in philosophic gown: 
Lycius shrank closer, as they met and past, 
Into his mantle, adding wings to haste, 
While hurried Lamia trembled: u Ah," said he, 
" Why do you shudder, love, so ruefully ? 
Why does your tender palm dissolve in dew ? " 
" Pm wearied/' said fair Lamia : " tell me who 
Is that old man ? I cannot bring to mind 
His features : — Lycius ! wherefore did you blind 
Yourself from his quick eyes ? " Lycius replied, 
u 'Tis Apollonius sage, my trusty guide 
And good instructor ; but to-night he seems 
The ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams." 

While yet he spake they had arrived before 
A pillar'd porch, with lofty portal door, 
Where hung a silver lamp whose phosphor glow 
Reflected in the slabbed steps below, 



160 LAMIA, 

Mild as a star in water ; for so new 

And so unsullied was the marble hue, 

So through the crystal polish, liquid fine, 

Ran the dark veins, that none but feet divine 

Could e'er have touch'd there. Sounds JEolian 

Breathed from the hinges, as the ample span 

Of the wide doors disclosed a j?Iace unknown 

Some time to any, but those two alone, 

And a few Persian mutes, who that same year 

Were seen au>ut the markets : none knew where 

They c^uld inhabit; the most curious 

Were foil'd, who watch'd to trace than to the! 

house : 
And but the flitter-winged verse must tell, 
For truth's sake what woe afterwards befell, 
'Twould humour many a heart to le^ve them thus, 
Shut from the busy world of more incredulous. 



PART EL 



Love in a hut, with water and a crust, 

Is — Love, forgive us ! — cinders, ashes, dust ; 

Love in a palace is perhaps at last 

More grievous torment than a hermit's fast : — 

That is a doubtful tale from faery land, 

Hard for the non-elect to understand. 

Had Lycius lived to hand his story down, 

He might have given the moral a fresh frown, 

Or clench'd it quite : but too short was their bliss 

To breed distrust and' hate, that make the soft 

voice hiss. 
Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare, 
Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair, 
Hover'd and buzz'd his wings, with fearful roar, 
Above the lintel of their chamber door, 
And down the passage cast a glow upon the floor 



LAMIA. lfi 

For all this came a ruin : side by side 
They were enthroned, in the even tide, 
Upon a couch, near to a curtailing 
Whose airy texture, from a golden string, 
Floated into the room, and let arpear 
UnveiPd the summer heaven, blue and cleai , 
Betwixt two marble shafts : — there they rej osed, 
Where use had made it sweet, with eyelids closed, 
Saving a tithe which love still open kept, 
That they might see each other while they almost 

slept ; 
When from the slope side of a suburb hill, 
Deafening the swallow's twitter, came a thrill 
Of trumpets — Lycius started — the sounds fled, 
But left a thought, a buzzing in his head. 
For the first time, since first he harbour'd in 
That purple-lined palace of sweet sin, 
His spirit pass'd beyond its golden bourn 
Into the noisy world almost forsworn. 
The lady, ever watchful, penetrant, 
Saw this with pain, so arguing a want 
Of something more, more than her empery 
Of joys ; and she began to moan and sigh 
Because he mused beyond her, knowing well 
That but a moment's thought is passion's passing 

bell. 
" Why do you sigh, fair creature ? " whisper'd he ; 
" Why, do you think ? " return'd she tenderly : 
u You have deserted me ; where am I now V 
Not in your heart while care weighs on your brow 
No, no, you have dismiss'd me ; and I go 
From your breast houseless : ay, it must be §0." 
He answer'd, bending to her open eyes, 
Where he was mirror'd small in paradise, — 
r My silver planet, both of eve and morn ! 
Why will you plead yourself so sad forlorn, 
While I am striving how to fill my heart 
With deeper crimson, and a double smart ? 
11 



162 LAMIA. 

How to entangle, trammel up and snare 
Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there, 
Like the hid scent in an unbudded rose ? 
Ay, a sweet kiss — you see your mighty woes. 
My thoughts ! shall I unveil them ? Listen then 
What mortal hath a prize, that other men 
May be confounded and abash'd withal, 
But lets it sometimes pace abroad majestical, 
And triumph, as in thee I should rejoice 
Amid the hoarse alarm of Corinth's voice. 
Let my foes choke, and my friends shout afar, 
While through the thronged streets your bridal cai 
Wheels round its dazzling spokes." — The lady't 

cheek 
Trembled ; she nothing said, but, pale and meek, 
Arose and knelt before him, wept a rain 
Of sorrows at his words ; at last with pain 
Beseeching him, the while his hand she wrung, 
To change his purpose. He thereat was stung, 
Perverse, with stronger fancy to reclaim 
Her wild and timid nature to his aim ; 
Besides, for all his love, in self despite, 
Against his better self, he took delight 
Luxurious in her sorrows, soft and new. 
His passion, cruel grown, took on a hue 
Fierce and sanguineous as 'twas possible 
In one whose brow had no dark veins to swelL 
Fine was the mitigated fury, like 
Apollo's presence when in act to strike 
The serpent — Ha ! the serpent ! certes, she 
Was rone. She burnt, she loved the tyranny, 
And, all subdued, consented to the hour 
When to the bridal he should lead his paramour. 
Whispering in midnight silence, said the youth, 
u Sure some sweet name thou hast, though, by mj 

truth, 
1 have not ask'd it, ever thinking thee 
Not mortal, but of heavenly progeny, 



LAMIA. 161 

As still I do. Hast any mortal name, 

Fit appellation for this dazzling frame ? 

Or friends or kinsfolk on the citied earth, 

To share our marriage feast and nuptial mirth ? r 

" I have no friends," said Lamia, " no, not one ; 

My presence in wide Corinth hardly known : 

My parents' bones are in their dusty urns 

Sepulchred, where no kindled incense burns, 

Seeing all their luckless race are dead, save me, 

And I neglect the holy rite for thee. 

Even as you list invite your many guests ,* 

But if, as now it seems, your vision rests 

With any pleasure on me, do not bid 

Old Apollonius — from him keep me hid." 

Lycius, perplex'd at words so blind and blank, 

Made close inquiry ; from whose touch she shrank 

Feigning a sleep ; and he to the dull shade 

Of deep sleep in a moment was betray'd. 

It was the custom then to bring away 
The bride from home at blushing shut of day, 
Veil'd, in a chariot, heralded along 
By strewn flowers, torches, and a marriage song, 
With other pageants : but this fair unknown 
Had not a friend. So being left alone, 
(Lycius was gone to summr all his kin,) 
And knowing surely she r >uld never win 
His foolish heart from its mad pompousness, 
She set herself, high-thoughted, how to dress 
The misery in fit magnificence 
She did so, but 'tis doubtful how and whence 
Came, and who were her sit* tie servitors- 
About the halls, and to an^ ircm the doors, 
There was a noise of win^s, till in short space 
The glowing banquet-r^om shone with wide-arched 

grace. 
A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone 
8upportress of the faery-roof, made moan 



1*4 LAMIA. 

Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might fade 
Fresh carved cedar, mimicking a glade 
Of palm and plantain, met from either side, 
High in the midst, in honour of the bride : 
Two palms and then two plantains, and so on 
From either side their stems branch'd one to one 
All down the aisled place; and teneath all 
There ran a stream of lamps straight on from wall 

to wall. 
So canopied, lay an untasted feast 
Teeming with odours. Lamia, regal drest, 
Silently paced about, and as she went, 
In pale contented sort of discontent, 
Mission'd her viewless servants to enrich 
The fretted splendour of each nook and niche. 
Between the tree-stems marbled plain at first, 
Came jasper panels ; then, anon, there burst 
Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees, 
And with the larger wove in small intricacies. 
Approving all, she faded at self-will, 
And shut the chamber up, close, hushM and still, 
Complete and ready for the revels rude, 
When dreadful guests would come to spoil her soli 

tude. 

The day appeared, and all the gossip rout. 
(J senseless Lycius ! Madman ! wherefore flout 
The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister'd hours, 
And show to common eyes these secret bowers ? 
The herd approach'd ; each guest, with busy brain 
Arriving at the portal, gazed amain, 
And enter'd marvelling : for they knew the street,, 
Remember'd it from childhood all complete 
Without a gap, yet ne'er before had seen 
That royal porch, that high-built fair demesne ; 
So in they hurried all, mazed, curio js and keen 
Save one, who look'd thereon with eye severe, 
And with calm-planted «*»*»« walk'd in austere ' 



LAMIA. 16* 

Twas Apollonius : something too he laugh'd, 
As though some knotty problem, that had daft 
His patient thought, had now begun to thaw, 
And solve and melt : — 'twas just as he foresaw. 

He met within the murmurous vestibule 
xlis young disciple. " 'Tis no common rule, 
Lycius," said he, " for uninvited guest 
To force himself upon you, and infest 
With an unbidden presence the bright throng 
Of younger friends ; yet must I do this wrong, 
And you forgive me." Lycius blush'd and led 
The old man through the inner doors broad-spread 
With reconciling words and courteous mien 
Turning into sweet milk the sophist's spleen. 

Of wealthy lustre was the banquet-room, 
Fill'd with pervading brilliance and perfume : 
Before each lucid panel fuming stood 
A censer fed with myrrh and spiced wood, 
Each by a sacred tripod held aloft, 
Whose slender feet wide-swerved upon the soft 
Wool-woofed carpets : fifty wreaths of smoke 
From fifty censers their light voyage took 
To the high roof, still mimick'd as they rose 
Along the mirror'd walls by twin-clouds odorous- 
Twelve sphered tables by silk seats insphered, 
High as the level of a man's breast rear'd 
On libbard's paws, upheld the heavy gold 
Of cups and goblets, and the store thrice told 
Of Ceres' horn, and, in huge vessels, wine 
Came from the gloomy tun with merry shine. 
Thus loaded with a feast the tables stood, 
Each shrining in the midst the ima^e of a God. 

When in an antechamber every guest 
Had felt the cold full sponge to pleasure press'd, 
By ministering slaves, upon his hands and feet, 



166 LAMIA. 

And fragrant oils with ceremony meet 
PouVd on his hair, they all moved to the feast 
Tn white robes, and themselves in order placed 
Around the silken couches, wondering 
Whence all this miojhtv cost and blaze of we*li* 
could spring. 

Soft went the music the soft air along, 
JThile fluent Greek a vowel'd under-song 
Kept up among the guests, discoursing low 
At first, for scarcely was the wine at flow ; 
But when the happy vintage touch'd their brains, 
Louder they talk, and louder come the strains 
Of powerful instruments : — the gorgeous dyes, 
The space, the splendour of the draperies, 
The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer, 
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia's self, appear, 
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed, 
And every soul from human trammels freed, 
No more so strange ; for merry wine, sweet wine, 
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine. 
Soon was God Bacchus at meridian height ; 
Fkish'd were their cheeks, and bright eyes double 

bright : 
Garlands of every green, and every scent 
From vales deflower'd, or forest-trees branch-rent, 
In baskets of bright osier'd gold were brought 
High as the handles heap'd, to suit the thought 
Of every guest : that each, as he did please, 
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow'd at his *ase. 

What wreath for Lamia ? What for Lycius ? 
What for the sage, old Apollonius ? 
Upon her aching forehead be there hung 
The leaves of willow and of adder's tongae ; 
And for the youth, quick, let us strip for hi n 
The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swip* 
Into forge tfuln ess ; and- for the sage, 



Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage 
War on his temples. Do not all charms fly 
At the mere touch of cold philosophy ? 
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven : 
We know her woof, her texture ; she is given 
In the dull catalogue ot common things. 
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, 
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line. 
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine — 
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made 
Hie tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shada 

By her glad Lycius sitting, in chief place, 
Scarce saw in all the room another face, 
Till, checking his love trance, a cup he took 
Full brimm'd, and opposite sent forth a look 
'Cross the broad table, to beseech a glance 
From his old teacher's wrinkled countenance, 
And pledge him. The bald-head philosopher 
Had fix'd his eye, without a twinkle or a stir, 
Full on the alarmed beauty of the bride, 
Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet 

pride. 
Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch, 
As pale it lay upon the rosy couch : 
'Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins ; 
Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains 
Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart. 
" Lamia, what means this ? Wherefore dost thou 

start? 
Know'st thou that man?" Poor Lamia answer'd 

not. 
He gazed into her eyes, and not a jot 
Own'd they the lovelorn piteous appeal : 
More, more he gazed : his human senses reel : 
Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs : 
There was no recognition in those orbs. 
" Lamia ! " he cried — and no «oft-toned replj. 



188 LAMIA, 

The many heard, and the loud revelry 

Grew hush : the stately music no more breathes ; 

The myrtle sicken'd in a thousand wreaths. 

By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased ; 

A deadly silence step by step increased, 

Until it seem'd a horrid presence there, 

And not a man but felt the terror in his hair. 

" Lamia ! " he shriek'd ; and nothing but the sh~Kk 

With its sad echo did the silence break. 

<; Begone, foul dream ! " he cried, gazing again 

In the bride's face, where now no azure vein 

Wander'd on fair-spaced temples ; no soft bloom 

Misted the cheek ; no passion to illume 

The deep-recessed vision : — all was blight ; 

Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white. 

" Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man 

Turn them aside, wretch 1 or the righteous ban 

Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images 

Here represent their shadowy presences, 

May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn 

Of painful blindness ; leaving thee forlorn, 

In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright 

Of conscience, for their long-offended might, 

For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries, 

Unlawful magic, and enticing lies. 

Corinthians ! look upon that gray-beard wretch ! 

Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch 

Around his demon eyes ! Corinthians, see ! 

My sweet bride withers at their potency." 

" Fool ! " said the sophist, in an under-tone 

Gruff with contempt ; which a death-nighing moas 

From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost, 

He sank supine beside the aching ghost. 

" Fool ! Fool ! " repeated he, while his eyes still 

Relented not, nor moved ; " from every ill 

Of life have I preserved thee to this day, 

And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey ? " 

Then Lamia breathed death-breath ; the sophist's eye. 



LAM J A. i$$ 

Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly, 

Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging : she, as well 

As her weak hand could any meaning tell, 

Motion'd him to be silent ; vainly so, 

He look'd and look'd again a level — No ! 

" A serpent ! " echoed he ; no sooner said, 

Than with a frightful scream she vanished : 

And Lycius' arms were empty of delight, 

As were his limbs of life, from that same night. 

On the high couch he lay ! — his friends came 

round — 
Supported him — no pulse or breath they found, 
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.* 

* " Philostratus, in his fourth book, de Vita Apollonii, hath 
a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of one 
Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that, 
going betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in 
the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which, taking him by the hand, 
carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of Corinth, and 
told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry 
with her, he should hear her sing and play, and drink such wine 
as never any drank, and no man should molest him : but she, 
being fair and lovely, would die with him, that was fair and lovely 
to behold. The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and 
discreet, able to moderate his passions, though not this of love, 
tarried with her awhile to his great content, and at last married 
her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came Apollonius; 
who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, 
a lamia; and that all her furniture was, like Tantalus' gold, 
described by Homer, no substance, but mere illusions. When 
she saw herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to b« 
silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon she, plate, 
house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant ; many thou 
winds took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of 
Greece." — Btjbton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Part 3, Sect. 2 
Memb. I Subs. I 




ISABELLA, OR THE POT OF BASIL; 

A STORY FROM BOCCACCIO 



I. 

I^AIR ISABEL, poor simple Isabel ! 
j Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye ! 
They could not in the self-same minsion dwell 
Without some stir of heart, some malady ; 
They could not sit at meals but feel how wsll 

It soothed each to be the other by ; 
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep> 
But to each other dream, and nightly weeD. 



ii. 

With everv ,orn their love grew tenderer, 
With "very eve deeper and tenderer still ; 

He np'^iit not in house, field, or garden stir, 
Bat her full shape would all his seeing fill ; 

*ind his continual voice was pleasanter 
To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill ; 

Her lute-string gave an echo of his name, 

She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same. 

m. 

Lie knew whose gentle hand was at the latch, 
Before the door had given her to his eyes ; 

And from her chamber-window he would catch 
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; 



ISABELLA. HI 

Ana content as her vespers would he watch, 

Because her c ace was turn'd to the same skies ; 
And witL sick longing all the night outwear, 
To hea~ her morning-step upon the stair. 



IV. 

A whole long month of May in this sad plight 
Made their cheeks paler by the break of June 

" To-morrow will I bow to my delight, 
To-morrow will I ask my ladj 's boon." — 

" O may I never see another night, 

Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune." - 

So spake they to their pillows ; but, alas, 

Honeyless days and days did he let pass ; 



Until sweet Isabella's untoueh'd cheek 
Fell sick within the rose's just domain, 

Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek 
By every lull to cool her infant's pain : 

" How ill she is ! " said he, " I may not speak, 
And yet I will, and tell my love all plain : 

If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears, 

And at the least 'twill startle off her cares." 



VI. 

So said he one fair morning, and all day 
His heart beat awfully against his side ; 

And to his heart he inwardly did pray 
For power to speak ; but still the ruddy tid« 

Stifled his voice, and pulsed resolve away — 
Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride, 

Yet brought him to the meekness of a child: 

Alas ! when passion is both meek and wild I 



7S ISABELLA. 



VII. 

So once more he had waked and anguished 
A dreary night of love and misery. 

If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed 
To every symbol on his forehead high ; 

She saw it waxing very pale and dead, 

And straight all flush'd ; so, lisped tenderly, 

% Lorenzo ! " — here she ceased her timid quest, 

But in her tone and look he read the rest 



VIII. 

M O Isabella ! I can half perceive 

That I may speak my grief into thine ear , 

If thou didst ever anything believe, 

Believe how I love thee, believe how near 

My soul is to its doom : I would not grieve 

Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not few 

Thine eyes by gazing ; but I cannot live 

Another night, and not my passion shrive. 



IX. 

" Love ! thou art leading me from wintry cold, 
Lady ! thou leadest me to summer clime, 

And I must taste the blossoms that unfold 

In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.* 

So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold, 
And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme : 

Great bliss was with them, and great happinesi 

Grew, like a lusty flower in June's caress. 



x. 

Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air, 

Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart 
Only fc:> meet again more close, and share 



ISABELLA. 171 

The inward fragrance of each other's heart 
.Jhe, to hpr chamber gone, a ditty fair 

Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart ; 
He with light steps went up a western hill. 
And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill. 



XI. 

All close they met again, before the dusk 
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil. 

All close they met, all eves, before the dusk 
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil, 

Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk, 

Unknown of any, free from whispering tale. 

Ah ! better had it been for ever so, 

Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe. 



XII. 

Were they unhappy then ? — It cannot be — 
Too many tears for lovers have been shed, 

Too many sighs give we to them in fee, 
Too much of pity after they are dead, 

Too many doleful stories do we see, 

Whose matter in bright gold were best be read 

Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse 

Over the pathless waves towards him bows. 



XIII. 

But, for the general award of love, 
The little sweet doth kill much bitterness ; 

Though Dido silent is in under-grove, 
And Isabella's was a great distress, 

Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove 
Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less — 

Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers, 

Know theie is richest «**«* in poison-flowers. 



174 ISABELLA. 



XIV- 

With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt, 
Enriched from ancestral merchandise, 

And for them many a weary hand did swelt 
In torched mines and noisy factories, 

And many once proud-quiver'd loins did melt 
In blood from stinging whip ; with hollow eyet 

Many all day in dazzling river stood, 

To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood. 



XV. 

For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, 
And went all naked to the hungry shark ; 

For them his ears gush'd blood ; for them in death 
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark 

Lay full of darts ; for them alone did seethe 
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark : 

Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel, 

That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel. 

XVI. 

Why were they proud ? Because their marble fount* 
Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears ? 

Why were they proud ? Because fair orange-mounta 
Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs ? 

Why were they proud ? Because red-lined account! 
Were richer than the songs of Grecian years ? 

Why were they proud ? again we ask aloud, 

Why in the name of Glory were they proud ? 

xvn. 

let were these Florentines as sell-retired 
In hungry pride and gainful cowardice, 
Aj two close Hebrews in that land inspired, 



ISABELLA. 1T6 

Paled in ana vineyardcd from beggar-spies ; 
The hawks of ship-mast forests — the untired 

And pannier'd mules for ducats and old lies — 
Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away, — 
Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay. 



xvm. 

How was it these same ledger-men could spy 

Fair Isabella in her downy nest ? 
How could they find out in Lorenzo's eye 

A straying from his toil ? Hot Egypt's pest 
Into their vision covetous and sly ! 

How could these money-bags see east and west ? 
Yet so they did — and every dealer fair 
Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare. 



XIX. 

O eloquent and famed Boccaccio ! 

Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon, 
And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow, 

And of thy roses amorous of the moon, 
And of thy lilies, that do paler grow 

Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune, 
For venturing syllables that ill beseem 
The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme. 



xx. 

Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale 
Shall move on soberly, as it is meet ; 

There is no other crime, no mad assail 

To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet 

But it is done — succeed the verse or fail — 
To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet ; 

To stead thee as a verse in English tongue, 

An echo of thee in the north-wind sung. 



IT« ISABELLA 



XXI. 



These brethren having found by many signs 
What love Lorenzo for their sister had, 

And how she loved him too, each unconfines 
His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad 

That he, the servant of their trade designs, 
Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad 

When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees 

To some high noble and his olive-trees. 

XXII. 

And many a jealous conference had they, 
And many times they bit their lips alone, 

Before they fix'd upon a surest way 

To make the youngster for his crime atone , 

And at the last, these mei of cruel clay 
Cut mercy with a sharp knife to the bone 

For they resolved in some forest dim 

To kill Lorenzo, and there bury him. 

XXIII. 

So on a pleasant morning, as he leant 
Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade 

Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent 
Their footing through the dews ; and to him said 

M You seem there in the quiet of content, 
Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade 

Calm speculation ; but if you are wise, 

Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies. 

XXIV. 

u To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount 
To spur three leagues towards the Appenine ; 



ISABELLA. 177 

Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count 

His dewy rosary on the eglantine." 
Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont, 

Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine ; 
And went in haste, to get in readiness, 
With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress, 

XXV. 

And as he to the court-yard pass'd along, 

Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft 

If he could hear his lady's matin-song, 
Or the light whisper of her footstep soft ; 

And as he thus over his passion hung, 
He heard a laugh full musical aloft ; 

When, looking up, he saw her features bright 

Smile through an in-door lattice all delight. 

XXVI. 

M Love, Isabel ! " said he, "I was in pain 

Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow : 

Ah ! what if I should lose thee, when so fain 
I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow 

Of a poor three hours' absence ? but we'll gain 
Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow 

Good bye ! I'll soon be back." — "Good bye I s said 
she 

And as he went she chanted merrily. 

XXVII. 

So the two brothers and their murder'd man 

Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream 
Gurgles through straighten 'd banks, and still doth 
fan 
Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream 
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan 
12 



|78 ISABELLA. 

The brothers* faces in the ford did seem, 
Lorenzo's flush with love. They pass'd the water 
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter. 



XXVIII. 

There was Lorenzo slain and buried in, 

There in that forest did his great love cease ; 

Ah when a soul doth thus its freedom win, 
It aches in loneliness — is ill at peace 

As tne break-covert bloodhounds of such sin : 
They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did 
tease 

Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur, 

Each richer by his being a murderer. 

XXIX. 

They told their sister how, with sudden speed, 
Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands, 

Because of some great urgency and need 
In their affairs, requiring trusty hands. 

Poor girl ! put on thy stifling widow's weed, 

And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed balidft 

To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow, 

And the next day will be a day of sorrow. 

XXX. 

She weeps alone for pleasures not to be ; 

Sorely she wept until the night came on, 
And then, instead of love, O misery ! 

She brooded o'er the luxury alone : 
His image in the dusk she seem'd to see, 

And to the silence made a gentle moan, 
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air, 
And on her couch low murmuring, " Where ? O 
where?" 



ISABELLA. iTf 



XXXI. 



But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long 
Its fiery vigil in her single breast ; 

She fretted for the golden hour, and hung 
Upon the time with feverish unrest — 

Not long ; for soon into her heart a throng 
Of higher occupants, a richer zest, 

Came tragic ; passion not to be subdued, 

And sorrow for her love in travels rude. 



XXXII. 

In the mid days of autumn, on their eves 
The breath of Winter comes from far away, 

And the sick west continually bereaves 
Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay 

Of death among the bushes and the leaves, 
To make all bare before he dares to stray 

From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel 

By gradual decay from beauty fell, 

XXXIII. 

Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes 
She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale, 

Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes 
Could keep him off so long ? They spake a tak 

Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes 
Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale \ 

And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud, 

To see their sister in her snowy shroud. 

XXXIV. 

And she had died in drowsy ignorance, 
But for a thing more deadly dark than aD ; 



80 ISABELLA. 

It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance, 
Which saves a sick man from the featherM paP 

For some few gasping moments ; like a lance, 
Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall 

With cruel pierce, and bringing him again 

Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain. 

XXXV. 

It was a vision. In the drowsy gloom, 
The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot 

Lorenzo stood, and wept : the forest tomb 
Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could 
shoot 

Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom 
Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute 

From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears 

Had made a miry channel for his tears. 

XXXVI. 

Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake 
For there was striving, in its piteous tongue, 

To speak as when on earth it was awake, 
And Isabella on its music hung : 

Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, 
As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung ; 

And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song, 

Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among. 

XXXVII. 

its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright 
With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof 

From the poor girl by magic of their light, 
The while it did unthread the horrid woof 

Of the late dark sn'd time — the murderous spite 
Of pride and avarice — the dark pine rooT 



ISABELLA. ltl 

In the forest — and the sodden turfed dell, 
Wliere, without any word, from stabs he fell. 

XXXVIII. 

Saying moreover, " Isabel, my sweet ! 

feed whortleberries droop above my head, 
And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet ; 

Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed 
Their leaves and prickly nuts ; a sheepfold bleat 

Comes from beyond the river to my bed : 
Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom, 
And it shall comfort me within the tomb. 



XXXIX. 

M I am a shadow now, alas ! alas ! 

Upon the skirts of human nature dwelling 
Alone : I chant alone the holy mass, 

While little sounds of life are round me knell 

And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass, 

And many a chapel bell the hour is telling, 
Paining me through : those sounds grow strange tc 

me, 
And thou art distant in Humanity. 



XL. 

u I know what was, I feel full well what is, 
And I should rage, if spirits could go mad ; 

Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss, 

That paleness warms my grave, as though J 
had 

A seraph chosen from the bright abyss 

To be my spouse : thy paleness makes me glai 

Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel 

A greater love through all my essence steaL" 



182 ISABELLA. 



XXI. 



The Spirit inourn'd " Adieu ! " — dissolved and left 
The atom darkness in a slow turmoil ; 

As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft, 
Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil, 

We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft, 

And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil : 

It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache, 

And in the dawn she started up awake ; 

XL II. 

u Ha ! ha ! " said she, " I knew not this hard life, 
I thought the worst was simple misery ; 

I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife 
Portion'd us — happy days, or else to die ; 

But there is crime — a brother's bloody knife ! 
Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy : 

Pll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes, 

And greet thee morn and even in the skies," 

XLIII. 

When the full morning came, she had devised 
How she might secret to the forest hie ; 

How she might find the clay, so dearly prized, 
And sing to it one latest lullaby ; 

How her short absence might be unsurmised, 
While she the inmost of the dream would try 

Resolved, she took with her an aged nurse, 

And went into that dismal forest-hearse. 

XLIV. 

See, as they creep along the river side, 
How she doth whisper to that aged dame, 



ISABELLA. 183 

And, after looking round the champaign wide, 
Shows her a knife. — " What feverous hectic 
flame 
Burns in thee, child ? — what good can thee betide 
That thou shouldst smile again ? " — The evening 
came, 
And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed ; 
The flint was there, the berries at his head. 



I XLV. 

Who hath not loiter'd in a green churchyard, 
And let his spirit, like a demon mole, 

Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard, 
To see skull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole ; 

Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marrM, 
And filling it once more with human soul ? 

Ah ! this is holiday to what was felt 

When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt. 

XL VI. 

She gazed into the fresh-thrown mould, as though 
One glance did fully all its secrets tell ; 

Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know 
Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well ; 

Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow, 
Xike to a native lily of the dell : 

Then with her knife, all sudden she began 

To dig more fervently than misers can. 

XL VII. 

Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon 
Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies; 

She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone, 
And put it in her bosom, where it drie* 

And freezes utterly unto the bone 



184 ISABELLA. 

Those dainties made to still an infant's cries: 
Then 'gan she work again ; nor stay'd her care, 
But to throw back at times her veiling hair. 



XLVIII. 

That old nurse stood beside her wondering, 
Until her heart felt pity to the core 

At sight of such a dismal labouring, 

And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar, 

And put her lean hands to the horrid thing: 
Three hours they labour'd at this travail sore , 

At last they felt the kernel of the grave, 

And Isabella did not stamp and rave. 

XLIX. 

Ah ! wherefore all this wormy circumstance ? 

Why linger at the yawning tomb so long ? 
O for the gentleness of old Romance, 

The simple plaining of a minstrel's song ! 
Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance, 

For here, in truth, it doth not well belong 
To speak : — O turn thee to the very tale, 
And taste the music of that vision pale. 



With duller steel than the Persean sword 
They cut away no formless monster's head, 

But one, whose gentleness did well accord 
With death, as life. The ancient harps have said, 

Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord : 
If Love impersonate was ever dead, 

Pale Isabella kiss'd it, and low moan'd. 

Twas love ; cold, — dead indeed, but not dethron d 



ISABELLA. I** 



IX 

In anxious secrecy they took it home, 
And then the prize was all for Isabel : 

She calm'd its wild hair with a golden comb, 
And all around each eye's sepulchral cell 

Pointed each fringed lash ; the smeared loam 
With tears, as chilly as a dripping well, 

She drench'd away : and still she eomb'd and kept 

Sighing all day — and still she kiss'd and wept 



LH. 

Then in a silken scarf, — sweet with the dews 
Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby, 

And divine liquids come with odorous ooze 
Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully, — 

She wrapp'd it up ; and for its tomb did choose 
A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by, 

And cover'd it with mould, and o'er it set 

Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet. 



LUI. 

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and son, 
And she forgot the blue above the trees, 

And she forgot the dells where waters run, 
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze ; 

She had no knowledge when the day was done, 
And the new morn she saw not : but in peace 

Hung over her sweet Basil evermore, 

And moisten'd it with tears unto the core. 



LIT. 

And so she ever fed it with thin tears, 
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it 



186 ISABELLA. 

So that it smelt more balmy than its peers 
Of Basil-tufts in Florence ; for it drew 

Nurture besides, and life, from human fears, 

From the fast mouldering head there shut frooa 
view: 

So that the jewel, safely casketed, 

Came forth, and in perfumed leaflets spread. 

LV. 

O Melancholy, linger here awhile ! 

O Music, Music, breathe despondingly ! 
O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle, 

Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us — O sigh ! 
Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile; 

Lift up your head:?, sweet Spirits, heavily, 
And make a pale light in your cypress gloomy 
Tinting with t>ilver wan your marble tombs. 



LVI. 

Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe, 

From the deep throat of sad Melpomene ! 

Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go, 
And touch the strings into a mystery; 

Sound mournfully upon the winds and low; 
For simple Isabel is soon to be 

Among the dead : She withers, like a palm 

Cut by an Indian for his juicy balm. 

LVII. 

O leave the palm to wither by itself; 

Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour ! — 
It may not be — those Baalites of pelf, 

Her brethren, noted the continual shower 
From her dead eyes ; and many a curious elf, 

Among her kindred, wonder'd that such dower 



ISABELLA. 187 

Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside 
By one mark'd out to be a Noble's bride. 



LVIII 

And, furthermore, her brethren wonderM much 
Why she sat drooping by the Basil green, 

And why it flourish'd, as by magic touch ; 

Greatly they wonder'd what the thing might 
mean : 

They could not surely give belief, that such 
A very nothing would have power to wean 

Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay, 

And even remembrance of her love's delay. 



LIX. 

Therefore they watclrd a time., when they might sift 
This hidden whim ; and long they watch'd in vain 

For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, 
And seldom felt she any hunger-pain : 

And when she left, she hurried back, as swift 
As bird on wing to breast its eggs again : 

And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there 

Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair 



LX. 

Yet they contrived to steal the Basil-pot, 
And to examine it in secret place : 

The thing was vile with green and livid spot, 
And yet they knew it was Lorenzo's face : 

The guerdon of their murder they had got, 
And so left Florence in a moment's space, 

Never to turn again. — Away they went, 

With blood upon their heads, to banishment 



1ft ISABELLA. 



LXI. 

O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away ! 

O Music, Music, breathe despondingly ! 
O Echo, Echo, on some other day, 

From isles Lethean, sigh to us — O sigh ! 
Spirits of grief, sing not your " Well-a-way ! * 

For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die ; 
Will die a death too lone and incomplete, 
Now they have ta'en away her Basil sweet 

LXII. 

Piteous she look'd on dead and senseless things- 
Asking for her lost Basil amorously : 

And with melodious chuckle in the strings 
Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry 

After the Pilgrim in his wanderings, 

To ask him where her Basil was ; and why 

Twas hid from her : " For cruel 'tis," said she, 

" To steal my Basil-pot away from me." 

LXIII. 

And so she pined, and so she died forlorn, 

Imploring for her Basil to the last. 
No heart was there in Florence but did mourn 

In pity of her love, so overcast. 
And a sad ditty of this story borne 

From mouth to mouth through all the oountrj 
pass'd : 
Still is the burthen sung — " O cruelty, 
To Bteal my Basil-pot away from me ! n 



THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 



ST. AGNES' EVE - Ah, bitter chill it was 
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold ; 
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen 
grass, 
And silent was the flock in woolly fold : 
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers while he told 
His rosary, and while Ins frosted breath, 
Like pious incense from a censer old, 
Seem* caking flight for heaven without a death, 
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he 
saith. 

u. 

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man ? 
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees, 
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan, 
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees : 
The sculptured dead, on each side seem to freeze, 
Emprison'd in black, purgatorial rails : 
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries, 
He passeth by ; and his weak spirit fails 
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and maik. 



ill. 

Northward he turneth through a little door, 
And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongnt 
Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor ; 
But no — already had his death-bell rung *, 



190 TEE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 

The joys of all his life were said and sung . 
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve : 
Another way he went, and soon among 
Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, 
And all night kept awake, for sinner's sake to grievt 



IV. 

That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft - 
And so it chanced, for many a door was wide, 
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft. 
The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide : 
The level chambers, ready with their pride, 
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests : 
The carved angels, ever eager-eyed, 
Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, 
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise m 
their breasts. 



At length burst in the argent revelry, 

With plume, tiara, and all rich array, 

Numerous as shadows haunting fairily 

The brain, new-stufPd, in youth, with triumpAi 

Of old romance. These let us wish away, 
And turn, sole-though ted, to one Lady there, 
Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day, 
On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care, 
As she had heard old dames full many times declare 



VI. 

They told her how, upon St Agnes' Eve, 
Young virgins might have visions of delight, 
And soft adorings from their loves receive 
Upon the honev'd middle of the night, 



THE EVE OF 87. AGNES. 191 

If ceremonies due they did aright ; 
As, supperless to bed they must retire, 
And couch supine their beauties, lily white ; 
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require 
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire 



VII. 

Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline : 
The music, yearning like a God in pain, 
She scarcely heard : her maiden eyes divine, 
Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train 
Pass by — she heeded not at all : in vain 
Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier, 
And back retired ; not cooPd by high disdain, 
But she saw not : her heart was otherwhere; 
She sigh'd for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the 
year. 

VIII. 

She danced along with vague, regardless eyes, 
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short : 
The hallow'd hour was near at hand : she sighs 
Amid the timbrels, and the throng'd resort 
Of whisperers in anger, or in sport ; 
'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn, 
Hoodwink'd with faery fancy ; all amort, 
Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn, 
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn. 



IX. 

So, purposing each moment to retire, 
She linger'd still. Meantime, across the moon, 
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire 
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors, 
Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and implcres 
All saints to give him sight of Madeline, 



1M THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 

But for one moment in the tedious hours, 
That he might gaze and worship all unseen ; 
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss — in sooth sink 
things have been. 



He ventures in : let no huzz'd whisper tell i 
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords 
Will storm his heart, Love's feverous citadel : 
For him, those chambers held barbarian herdet 
Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords, 
Whose very dogs would execrations howl 
Against his lineage : not one breast affords 
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul, 
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul. 



XI. 

Ah, happy chance ! the aged creature came, 

Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand, 

To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame, 

Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond 

The sound of merriment and chorus bland : 

He startled her ; but soon she knew his face, 

\nd grasp'd his fingers in her palsied hand, 

Saying, " Mercy, Porphyro ! hie thee from this 

place ; 
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirstj 

race! 

XII. 

u Get hence ! get hence ! there's dwarfish Hilde 

brand ; 
He had a fever late, and in the fit 
He cursed thee and thine, both nouse and land ; 
Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit 
More tame for his gray hairs — Alas me! flitl 



THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. \%% 

Flit like a ghost away." — "Ah, Gossip dear, 
We're safe enough ; here in this arm-chair sit, 
And tell me how " — " Good Sakits ! not here, 

not here ; 
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be th? 

bier." 

XIII. 

He follow'd through a lowly arched way, 
Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume 
And as she mutter'd " Well-a — well-a-day ! " 
He found him in a little moonlight room, 
Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb. 
" Now tell me where is Madeline," said he, 
" O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom 
Which none but secret sisterhood may see, 
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously ' 

XIV. 

" St. Agnes I Ah ! it is St. Agnes' Eve — 
Yet men will murder upon holy days : 
Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, 
And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays, 
To venture so : it fills me with amaze 
To see thee, Porphyro ! St. Agnes' Eve ! 
God's ^elp I my lady fair the conjurer plays 
This very night : good angels her deceive ! 
But let me laugh awhile, v *e mickle time to grie?* 



xv. 

Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon, 
While Porphyro upon her face doth look, 
Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone 
Who keepeth closed a wondrous riddle-book, 
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook. 
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told 



194 THE EVE OF 87. AGNES. 

His lady's purpose ; and he scarce ^ould brook 
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold 
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old. 



Sudden a thought came like a full-Diow- r :5£. 
Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart 
Made purple riot : then doth he propose 
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start : 
"A cruel man and impious thou art : 
Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep and dream 
Alone with her good angels, far apart 
From wicked men like thee. Go, Go 1 I deem 
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst 



XVII. 

44 1 will not harm her, by all saints I swear,* 
Quoth Porphyro : " O may I ne'er find grace 
When my weak voice shall whisper its las* 

prayer, 
If one of her soft ringlets I displace, 
Or look with ruffian passion in her face : 
Good Angela, believe me by these tears ; 
Or I will, even in a moment's space, 
Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears, 
And beard them, though they be more fang'd than 

wolves and bears." 



XVIII. 

44 Ah ! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul ? 
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, church-yard thing, 
Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll; 
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening, 
Were never miss'd." Thus plaining, doth she 
bring 



TEE EVE OF ST. AGNEB. 1M 

A gentler speech from burning Porphyro ; 
So woful, and of such deep sorrowing, 
That Angela gives promise she will do 
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or wot. 



XIX. 

Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy, 
Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide 
Him in a closet, of such privacy 
That he might see her beauty unespied, 
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride, 
While legion'd fairies paced the coverlet, 
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyedL 
Never on such a night have lovers met, 
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt 



xx. 

" It shall be as thou wishest," said the Dame : 
"All cates and dainties shall be stored there 
Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour 

frame 
Her own lute thou wilt see : no time to spare, 
For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare 
On such a catering trust my dizzy head. 
Wait here, my child, with patience kneel i» 

prayer 
The while : Ah ! thou must needs the lady we<L 
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead. 

XXI. 

So saying she hobbled off with busy fear. 
The lover's endless minutes slowly pass'd ; 
The Dame return 'd, and whisper'd in hii 6*r 
To follow her ; with aged eyes aghast 
From fright of dim espial. Safe at lart, 



l$S THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 

Through many a dusky gallery, they gain 
The maiden's chamber, silken, hush'd and chaste 
Where Porphyro took covert, pleased amain. 
His poor guide hurried back with agues in hei 
brain. 

xxn. 

Her faltering hand upon the balustrade, 
Old Angela was feeling for the stair, 
When Madeline, St Agnes' charmed maid, 
Rose, like a mission'd spirit, unaware : 
With silver taper's light, and pious care, 
She turn'd, and down the aged gossip led 
To a safe level matting. Now prepare, 
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed ; 
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray'd 
and fled. 

XXIII. 

Out went the taper as she hurried in ; 
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died : 
She closed the door, she panted, all akin 
To spirits of the air, and visions wide : 
No utter'd syllable, or, woe betide ! 
But to her heart, her heart was voluble, 
Paining with eloquence her balmy side ; 
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell 
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled in her dell 

XXIV. 

A casement high and triple arch'd there was, 

All garlanded with carven imageries 

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-gras* 

And diamonded with panes of quaint device, 

Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, 

As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings ; 

And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, 



THE EVE OF ST. AONES. \*1 

And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 
4 shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queeni 
and kings. 

XXV. 

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon ; 
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 
And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
And on her hair a glory, like a saint : 
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, 
Sa w e wings, for heaven : Porphyro grew faint: 
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal 
taint 

XXVI. 

Anon his heart revives : her vespers done, 
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees ; 
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one ; 
Loosens her fragrant bodice ; by degrees 
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees : 
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, 
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, 
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed, 
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled 



XXVII. 

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, 
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay, 
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd 
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away ; 
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day; 
Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain ; 
Clasp'd like a missal where swart Pay nims pray 
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, 
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again 



|*8 TSM EVE OF 8T. JLGJS- 



XXYHL 

Stolen to thia paradise, and so entranced, 
Porphvro gazed upon her empty dress, 
Ana hsten'd to her breathing, if it chanced 
To wake into a slumberous tenderness ; 
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless. 
And breathed himself: then from the closet 

crept, 
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness 
And over the hush'd carpet, silent, stent, 
And '*ween the curtains peepM, where, lo! — how 
fast she slept 

XXIX. 

Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon 
Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set 
A table, and, half anguish'd, threw thereon 
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet : — 
O for some drowsy Morphean amulet ! 
The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, 
The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet, 
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone : — 
The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone 



XXX. 

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep, 
In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender'd, 
While he from forth the closet brought a heap 
Of candied apple, quince, and pium, and gourd 
With jellies soother than the creamy curd, 
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon ; 
Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd 
From Fez ; and spiced dainties, every one, 
From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon 



TEE EVE OF bT. AGNES. Iff 



XXXI. 

These delicates he heap'd with glowing hand 
On golden dishes and m baskets bright 
Of wreathed silver : sumptuous they stand 
In the retired quiet of the night, 
Filling the chilly room with perfume light — 
"And now, my love, my seraph fair awake 1 
Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite : 
Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes' sake, 
Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth 
ache.** 

xxxn. 

Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm 
Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream 
By the dusk curtains : — 'twas a midnight charm 
Impossible to melt as iced stream : 
The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam ; 
Broad golden fringe upon the carpet hes : 
It seem'd he never, never could redeem 
From such a steadfast spell his lady's eyes ; 
80 mused awhile, entoil'd in woofed phantaitea. 



XXXIII. 

Awakening up, he took her hollow lute, — 
Tumultuous, — and, in chords that tenderest be, 
He play'd an ancient ditty, long since mute, 
In Provence calPd " La belle dame sans mercy :* 
Close to her ear touching the melody ; — 
Wherewith disturb'd, she utter'd a soft moan : 
He ceased — she panted quick — and suddenly 
Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone : 
U)K>n his knees he sank, pale as emooth-seulptoed 
•tone. 



SOO THE EVE OF ST. AGNE/x 



XXXIV. 

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, 
Now wide, awake, the vision of her sleep : 
There was a painful change, that nigh expell'd 
The blisses of her dream so pure and deep. 
At which fair Madeline began to weep, 
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh 
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep , 
Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye, 
Fearing to move or speak, she look'd so dream 
ingly. 

XXXV 

"Ah, Porphyro ! " said she, " but even now 
Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, 
Made tuneable with every sweetest vow ; 
And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear . 
How changed thou art ! how pallid, chill, and 

drear ! 
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, 
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear! 
Oh leave me not in this eternal woe, 
For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where t« 

go." 

XXXVI. 

Beyond a mortal man itnpassion'd far 
At these voluptuous accents, he arose, 
Ethereal, flush'd, and like a throbbing star 
Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; 
Into her dream he melted, as the rose 
Blendeth its odour with the violet, — 
Solution sweet : meantime the frost-wind blows 
Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet 
▲gainst the window-panes ; St. Agnes' moon hadi 
set 



THE EVE OF 8T. AGNES. 201 



XXXVII. 

"Us dark : quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet 
" This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline ! " 
'Tis dark : the iced gusts still rave and beat : 
44 No dream, alas ! alas ! and woe is mine ! 
Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine. -— 
Cruel ! what traitor could thee hither bring ? 
I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine, 
Though thou forsakest a deceived thing ; — 
A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing * 

XXXVIII. 

** My Madeline ! sweet dreamer ! lovely bride 

Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest ? 

Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and vermeil 

dyed? 
Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest 
After so many hours of toil and quest, 
A famish'd pilgrim, — saved by miracle. 
Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest 
Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st weli 
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infideL" 

XXXIX. 

" Hark ! 'tis an elfin storm from faery land, 
Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed : 
Arise — arise ! the morning is at hand ; — 
The bloated wassailers whl never heed : 
Let us away, my love, with happy speed ; 
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see, — 
Drown'd all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead : 
Awake ! arise ! my love, and fearless be, 
For o'er the southern moors I have a home fof 
thee." 



103 TEE EVE OF ST. AGNE8. 



XX. 

She hurried at his words, beset with fears, 
For there were sleeping dragons all around, 
At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears — 
Down the" wide stairs a darkling way they found, 
In all the house was heard no human sound. 
A chain-droop'd lamp was flickering by each 

door; 
The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, 
Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar ; 
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. 

XLI. 

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall 1 
Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide, 
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl, 
With a huge empty flagon by his side : 
The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide, 
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns: 
By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide : — 
The chains lie silent on the footworn stones ; 
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans 

XLII. 

And they are gone : ay, ages long ago 
These lovers fled away into the storm. 
That night the Baron'dreamt of many a woe, 
And alfhis warrior-guests, with shade and form 
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, 
Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old 
Died palsy-twitch'd, with meagre face deform > 
The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, 
Fer aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold 



HYPERION. 



BOOK L 



DEEP in the shady sadness of a vale 
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn^ 
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, 
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, 
Still as the silence round about his lair ; 
Forest on forest hung about his head 
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, 
Not so much life as on a summer's day 
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass-, 
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. 
A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd more 
By reason of his fallen divinity 
Spreading a shade : the Naiad 'mid her reeds 
Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips. 

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, 
No further than to where his feet had stray'd, 
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground 
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, 
Unsceptred ; and his realmless eyes were closed ; 
While his bow'd head seein'd listening to the EartL, 
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet. 

It seem'd no force could wake him from his place 
But there came one, who with a kindred hand 
Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low 
With reverence, though to one who knew it not 
She was a Goddes* of the infant world , 



*Q4 HYPERION. 

By her in stature the tall Amazon 
Had stood a pigmy's height : she would have ta'e^ 
Achilles by the hair and bent his neck ; 
Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel. 
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx, 
PedestalPd haply in a palace-court, 
When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore. 
But oh how unlike marble was that face : 
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made 
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self. 
There was a listening fear in her regard, 
As if calamity had but begun ; 
As if the vanward clouds of evil days 
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear 
Was with its stored thunder labouring up. 
One hand she press'd upon that aching spot 
Where beats the human heart, as if just there, 
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain : 
The other upon Saturn's bended neck 
She laid, and to the level of his ear 
Leaning with parted lips, some words she spakr 
In solemn tenour and deep organ tone : 
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tonjme 
Would come in these like accents ; O how frail 
To that large utterance of the early Gods ! 
* Saturn, look up! — though wherefore, pool dd| 
King? j 

I have no comfort for thee, no not one : 
I cannot say, ' O wherefore sleepest thou ? 9 
For heaven is parted from thee, and the eartb 
Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God ; 
And ocean too, with all its solemn noise, 
Has from thy sceptre pass'd ; and all the air 
Is emptied of thine hoary majesty. 
Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, 
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house ; 
And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hand* 
Scorches and burns our once serene domain. 



HYPERION. 204 

V aching time ! O moments big as years ! 
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous trutt 
And press it so upon our weary griefs 
That unbelief has not a space to breathe. 
Saturn, sleep on : — O thoughtless, why did 1 
Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude V 
Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes ? 
Saturn, sleep on ! while at thy feet I weep. v 

As when, upon a tranced summer-night, 
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, 
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, 
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir, 
Save from one gradual solitary gust 
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, 
As if the ebbing air had but one wave : 
So came these words and went ; the while in tears 
She touch'd her fair large forehead to the ground, 
Just where her falling hair might be outspread 
A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet. 
One moon, with alteration slow, had shed 
Her silver seasons four upon the night, 
And still these two were postured motionless, 
Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern ; 
The frozen God still couchant on the earth, 
And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet : 
Until at length old Saturn lifted up 
His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone, 
And all the gloom and sorrow of the place, 
And that fair kneeling Goddess ; and ther sp*k* 
As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard 
Jhook horrid with such aspen-malady : 
" O tender spouse of gold Hyperion, 
Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face ; 
Look up, and let me see our doom in it ; 
Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape 
Is Saturn's ; tell me, if thou hear'st the voice 
Of Saturn ; tell me, if this wrinkling brow, 



306 HYPERION. 

Naked and bare of its great diadem, 

Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power 

To make me desolate ? whence came the strength f 

How was it nurtured to such bursting forth, 

While Fate seem'd strangled in my nervous grasp ? 

But it is so ; and I am smother'd up, 

And buried from all godlike exercise 

Of influence benign on planets pale, 

Of admonitions to the winds and seas, 

Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting, 

And all those acts which Deity supreme 

Doth ease its heart of love in. I am gone 

Away from my own bosom : I'have left 

My strong identity, my real self, 

Somewhere between the throne, and where I sit 

Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search ' 

Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round 

Upon all space : space starr'd, and lorn of light : 

Space region'd with life-air, and barren void ; 

Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell. 

Search, Thea, search ! and tell me if thou seest 

A certain shape or shadow, making way 

With wings or chariot fierce to repossess 

A heaven he lost ere while : it must — it must 

Be of ripe progress — Saturn must be king. 

Yes, there must be a golden victory ; 

There must be Gods thrown down, and trumpet! 

blown 
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival 
Upon the gold clouds metropolitan, 
Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir 
Of strings in hollow shells ; and there shall be 
Beautiful things made new, for the surprise 
Of the sky-children ; I will give command . 
Thea ! Thea ! Thea ! where is Saturn ? n 

This passion lifted him upon his feet, 
And made hi* bands to struggle in the air, 



HYPERION, 207 

His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat, 

His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease. 

He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep ; 

A little time, and then again he snatch'd 

Utterance thus : — " But cannot I create ? 

Cannot I form ? Cannot I fashion forth 

Another world, another universe, 

To overbear and crumble this to nought ? 

Where is another chaos ? Where ? " That word 

Found way unto Olympus, and made quake 

The rebel three. Thea was startled up, 

And in her bearing was a sort of hope, 

As thus she quick-voiced spake, yet full ot awe. 

" This cheers our fallen house : come to oui 
friends, 

Saturn ! come away, and give them heart ; 

1 know the covert, for thence came I hither." 
Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went 
With backward footing through the shade a space 
He follow'd, and she turn'd to lead the way 
Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist 
Which eagles cleave, upmounting from their nest. 

Meanwhile in other realms big tears were shed, 
More sorrow like to this, and such like woe, 
Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe : 
Tl.<3 Titans fierce, self-hid, or prison-bound, 
Groan'd for the old allegiance once more, 
And listen'd in sharp pain for Saturn's voice. 
But one of the whole mammoth-brood still kept 
His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty ; 
Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire 
Still sat, still snufFd the incense, teeming up 
From man to the sun's God, yet unsecure : 
For as among its mortals omens drear 
Fright and perplex, so also shudder'd he, 
Not at dog's howl, or gloom-bird's hated screechy 



208 HYPERION. 

Or the familiar visiting of one 

Upon the first toll of his passing-bell, 

Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp ; 

But horrors, portion'd to a giant nerve, 

Oft made H) perion ache. His palace bright, 

Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold, 

And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks, 

Glared a blood-red through all its thousand court* 

Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries ; 

And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds 

Flush'd angerly : while sometimes eagles' wings, 

Unseen before by Gods or wondering men, 

Darken'd the place; and neighing steeds wer€ 

heard, 
Not heard before by Gods or wondering men. 
Also, when he would taste the spicy wreaths 
Of incense, breathed aloft from sacred hills, 
Instead of sweets, his ample palate took 
Savour of poisonous brass and metal sick : 
And so, when harbour'd in the sleepy west, 
After the full completion of fair day, 
For rest divine upon exalted couch, 
And slumber in the arms of melody, 
He paced away the pleasant hours of ease 
With stride colossal, on from hall to hall ; 
While far within each aisle and deep recess, 
His winged minions in close clusters stood, 
Amazed and full of fear ; like anxious men 
Who on wide plains gather in panting troops, 
When earthquakes jar their battlements and 

towers. 
Even now, while Saturn, roused from icy trance, 
Went step for step with Thea through the woods, 
Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear, 
Came slope upon the threshold of the west ; 
Then, as was wont, his palace-door flew ope 
In smoothed silence, save what solemn tubes, 
Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet 



UYPEKION. ?/K 

And wandering sounds, slow breathed moodier 
And like a rose in vermeil tint and shape, 
In fragrance soft, and coolness to the eye, 
That inlet to severe magnificence 
Stood full blown, for the God to enter in. 

He enterM, but he enter'd full of wrath ; 
His flaming robes streamed out be von d his heels, 
And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire, 
That scared away the meek ethereal Hours 
And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared, 
From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault, 
Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathed light, 
And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades, 
Until he reach' d the great main cupola; 
There standing fierce beneath, he stampt his foot, 
And from the basements deep to the high towers 
Jarr'd his own golden region ; and before 
The quavering thunder thereupon had ceased, 
His voice leapt out, despite of godlike curb, 
To this result : " O dreams of dav and night ! 
O monstrous forms ! O effigies of pain I 
O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom ! 

lank-ear'd Phantoms of black- weeded pools ! 
Why do I know ye ? why have I seen ye ? why 
Is my eternal essence thus distraught 

To see and to behold these horrors new ? 
Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall ? 
Am I to leave this haven of my rest, 
This cradle of my glory, this soft clime, 
This calm luxuriance of blissful light, 
These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes, 
Of all my lucent empire ? It is left 
Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine. 
The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry, 

1 cannot see — but darkness, death and darkn< 
Even here, into my centre of repose, 
The shady visions come to domineer, 

14 



810 HYPERION. 

Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp — 
Fall ! — No, by Tellus and her briny robes i 
Over the fiery frontier of my realms 
I will advance a terrible right arm 
Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove, 
And bid old Saturn take his throne again. " 
He spake, and ceased, the while a heavier threa 
Held struggle with his throat, but came not fortL 
For as in theatres of crowded men 
Hubbub increases more they call out " Hush . " 
So at Hyperion's words the Phantoms pale 
Bestirr'd themselves, thrice horrible and cold ; 
And from the mirror'd level where he stood 
A mist arose, as from a scummy marsh. 
At this, through all his bulk an agony 
Crept gradual., from the feet unto the crown, 
Like a lithe serpent vast and muscular 
Making slow way, with head and neck convulsed 
From over-strained might. Released, he fled 
To the eastern gates, and full six dewy hours 
Before the dawn in season due should blush, 
He breathed fierce breath against the sleepy 

portals, 
Clear'd them of heavy vapours, burst them wide 
Suddenly on the ocean's chilly streams. 
The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode 
Each day from east to west the heavens through. 
Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds; 
Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid, 
But ever and anon the glancing spheres, 
Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure, 
Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark 
Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep 
Up to the zenith — hieroglyphics old, 
Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers 
Then living on the earth, with labouring thought 
Won from the gaze of many centuries : 
Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge 



HYPERION. 211 

Of stone, or marble swart ; their import gone, 

Their wisdom long since fled. Two wings this orl 

Possess* d for glory, two fair argent wings, 

Ever exalted at the God's approach : 

And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense 

Rose, one by one, till ail outspreaded were ; 

While stiH the dazzling globe maintain'd eclipsed, 

Awaiting for Hyperion's command. 

Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne 

And bid the day begin, if but for change. 

He might not : — No, though a primeval God j 

The sacred seasons might not be disturb'd. 

Therefore the operations of the dawn 

Stay'd in their birth, even as here 'tis told. 

Those silver wings expanded sisterly, 

Eager to sail their orb ; the porches wide 

Open'd upon the dusk demesnes of night ; 

And the bright Titan, frenzied with new woes, 

Unused to bend, by hard compulsion bent 

His spirit to the sorrow of the time ; 

And all along a dismal rack of clouds, 

Upon the boundaries of day and night, 

He stretch'd himself in grief and radiance faint 

There as he lay, the Heaven with its stars 

Look'd down on him with pity, and the voice 

Of Coelus, from the universal space, 

Thus whisper'd low and solemn in his ear : 

" O brightest of my children dear, earth-born 

And sky-engender'd, Son of Mysteries ! 

All unrevealed even to the powers 

Which met at thy creating ! at whose joys 

And palpitations sweet, and pleasures soft, 

I, Coelus, wonder how they came and whence; 

And at the fruits thereof what shapes they be, 

Uistinct, and visible ; symbols divine, 

Manifestations of that beauteous life 

Diffused unseen throughout eternal space ; 

Of these new-form 'd art thou, oh brightest child I 



212 HYPERION, 

Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses 
There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion 
Of son against his sire. I saw him fall, 
I saw my first-born tumbled from his throne ! 
To me his arms were spread, to me his voice 
Found way from forth the thunders round his head 
Pale wox I, and in vapours hid my face. 
Art thou, too, near such doom ? vague fear there is 
For I have seen my sons most unlike Gods. 
Divine ye were created, and divine 
In sad demeanour, solemn, undisturb'd, 
Unruffled, like high Gods, ye lived and ruled • 
Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath ; 
Actions of rage and passion ; even as 
I see them, on the mortal world beneath, 
In men who die. — This is the grief, O Son ! 
Sad sign of ruin, sudden dismay, and fall ! 
Yet do thou strive ; as thou art capable, 
As thou canst move about, an evident God, 
And canst oppose to each malignant hour 
Ethereal presence : — I am but a voice ; 
My life is but the life of winds and tides, — 
No more than winds and tides can I avail : — 
But thou canst. — Be thou therefore in the van 
Of circumstance ; yea, seize the arrow's barb 
Before the tense string murmur, — To the earth 
For there thou wilt find Saturn, and his woes. 
Meantime I will keep watch on thy bright sun. 
And of thy seasons be a careful nurse." — 
Ere half this region-whisper had come down 
Hyperion arose, and on the stars 
Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide 
Until it ceased ; and still he kept them wide : 
And still they were the same bright, patient stars. 
Then with a slow incline of his broad breast, 
diver in the pearly seas, 
stoop'd over the airy shore, 
all noiseless into the deep night 



RK PERI ON. til 



BOOK II. 

Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings 

Hyperion slid into the rustled air, 

And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place 

Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd. 

It was a den where no insulting light 

Could glimmer on their tears; where their owi 

groans 
They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar 
Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse, 
Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where. 
Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd 
Ever as if just rising from a sleep, 
Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns ; 
And thus in thousand hugest phantasies 
Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe. 
Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon, 
Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge 
Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled : 
Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering. 
Coeus, and Gyges, and Briareiis, 
Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion, 
With many more, the brawniest in assault, 
Were pent in regions of laborious breath ; 
Dungeon'd in opaque element to keep 
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their 

limbs 
Locked up like veins of metal, cramped and 

screwed ; 
Without a motion, save of their big hearts 
Heaving in pain, and horribly convulsed 
With sanguine, feverous, boiling gurge of pulse. 
Mnemosyne was straying in the world , 
Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered ; 
And many else were free to roam abroad, 
But for the main, here found they covert drear. 



114 HYPERION. 

Scarce images of life, one here, one there, 

Lay vast and edgeways ; like a dismal cirque 

Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor, 

When the chill rain begins at shut of eve, 

In dull November, and their chancel vault, 

The heaven itself, is blinded throughout night. 

Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave 

Or word, or look, or action of despair. 

Creiis was one ; his ponderous iron mace 

Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock 

Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined. 

I'apetus another ; in his grasp, 

A serpent's plashy neck ; its barbed tongue 

Squeezed from the gorge, and all its unctirl'd 

length 
Dead ; and because the creature could not spit 
Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove. 
Next Cottus : prone he lay, chin uppermost, 
As though in pain : for still upon the flint 
He ground severe his skull, with open mouth 
And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him 
Asia, born of most enormous Caf, 
Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs, 
Though feminine, than any of her sons : 
More thought than woe was in her dusky face 
For she was prophesying of her glory ; 
And in her wide imagination stood 
Palm-shaded temples, and high rival fanes, 
By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles. 
Even as Hope upon her anchor leans, 
So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk 
Shed from the broadest of her elephants. 
Above her, on a crag's uneasy shelve, 
Upon his elbow raised, all prostrate else, 
Shadow'd Enceladus ; once tame and mild 
As grazing ox un worried in the meads; 
Now tiger-passion'd, lion-thoughted, wroth, 
He meditated> plotted, and <°,ven now 



HYPERION. 2ifc 

Waa hurling mountains in that second war, 

Not long delay'd, that scared the younger Gods 

To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird. 

Not far hence Atlas ; and beside him prone 

Phorcus, the sire of Gordons. Neisdibour'd close 

Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap 

Sobb'd Clymene among ber tangled hair. 

Iu midst of all lay Themis, at the feet 

Of Ops the queen all clouded round from sight ; 

No shape distinguishable, more than when 

Thick night confounds the pine-tops with *hc 

clouds : 
And many else whose names may not be told. 
For when the muse's wings are air-ward spread, 
Who shall delay her flight ? And she must chant 
Of Saturn, and his guide, who now had climbed 
With damp and slippery footing from a depth 
More horrid still. Above a sombre cliff 
Their heads appear'd, and up their stature grew 
Till on the level height their steps found ease : 
Then Thea spread abroad her trembling arms 
Upon the precincts of this nest of pain, 
And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face : 
There saw she direst strife ; the supreme God 
At war with all the frailty of grief, 
Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge, 
Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all despair. 
Against these plagues he strove in vain : for Fate 
Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head, 
A disanointing poison : so that Thea, [ 

Affrighted, kept her still, and let him pass 
First onwards in, among the fallen tribe. 

As with us mortal men, the laden heart 
Is persecuted more, and fever'd more, 
When it is nighing to the mournful house 
Where other hearts are sick of the same broil* : 
80 Saturn, as he walk'd into the midst, 



J16 HYPERION. 

Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest. 

But that he met Enceladus's eye, 

Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at once 

Came like an inspiration ; and he shouted, 

" Titans, behold your God ! " at which some 

groan'd ; 
Some started on their feet ; some also shouted ; 
Some wept, some wail'd — all bow'd with reverence 
And Ops, uplifting her black folded veil, 
Show'd her pale cheeks, and all her forehead wan ; 
Her eyebrows thin and jet, and hollow eyes. 
There is a roaring in the bleak-grown pines 
When Winter lifts his voice ; there is a noise 
Among immortals when a God gives sign, 
With hushing finger, how he means to load 
His tongue with the full weight of utterless thought, 
With thunder, and with music, and with pomp : 
Such noise is like the roar of bleak-grown pines ; 
Which, when it ceases in this mountain'd world, 
No other sound succeeds ; but ceasing here, 
Among these fallen, Saturn's voice therefrom 
Grew up like organ, that begins anew 
Its strain, when other harmonies, stopt short, 
Leave the dinn'd air vibrating silverly. 
Thus grew it up : — kk Not in my own sad breast, 
Which is its own great judge and searcher out, 
Can I find reason why ye should be thus: 
Not in the legends of the first of days, 
Studied from that old spirit-leaved book 
Which starry Uranus with finger bright 
Saved from the shores of darkness, when the wavet 
Low-ebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom ; 
And the which book ye know I ever kept 
For my firm-based footstool : — Ah, infirm ! 
Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent 
Of element, earth, water, air, and fire, — 
At war, at peace, or inter-quarrelling 
One against one, or two, or three, or all, 



HYPERION. 317 

Each several one against the other three, 
As fire with air loud warring when rain-floods 
Drown both, and press them both against earth'i 

face, 
Where, finding sulphur, a quadruple wrath 
Unhinges the poor world ; — not in that strife, 
Wherefrom I take strange lore, and read it deep, 
Can I find reason why ye should be thus : 
No, nowhere can unriddle, though I search, 
And pore on Nature's universal scroll 
Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, 
The first-born of all shaped and palpable Gods, 
Should cower beneath what, in comparison, 
Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, 
O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter*d, ye are 

here ! 
O Titans, shall I say 'Arise ! ' — Ye groan : 
Shall 1 say * Crouch I ' — Ye groan. What can J 

then ? 
O Heaven wide ! O unseen parent dear ! 
What can I ? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 
How we can war, how engine our great wrath I 
O speak your counsel now, for Saturn's ear 
Is all a-hunger'd. Thou, Oceanus, 
Ponderest high and deep ; and in thy face 
( see, astonied, that severe content 
Which comes of thought and musing: give ui 

help!" 

So ended Saturn ; and the God of the Sea, 
Sophist and sage, from no Athenian grove, 
But cogitation in his watery shades, 
Arose, with locks not oozy, and began, 
In murmurs, which his first endeavouring tongue 
Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands. 
" O ye, whom wrath consumes I who, passion-stun^ 
Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies I 
Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears, 



*18 HYPERION. 

My voice is not a bellows unto ire. 

Yet listen, ye who will, whilst 1 bring prooi 

How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop i 

And in the proof much comfort will I give, 

If ye will take that comfort in its truth. 

vY T e fall by course of Nature's law, not force 

Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou 

Hast sifted well the atom-universe ; 

But for this reason, that thou art the King, 

And only blind from sheer supremacy, 

One avenue was shaded from thine eyes, 

Through which I wander'd to eternal truth. 

And first, as thou wast not the first of powers, 

80 art thou not the last; it cannot be. 

Thou art not the beginning nor the end. 

From chaos and parental darkness came 

Light, the first fruits of that intestine broil, 

That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends 

Was ripening in itself. The ripe hour came, 

And with it light, and light engendering 

Upon its own producer, forthwith touch'd 

The whole enormous matter into life. 

Upon that very hour, our parentage, 

The Heavens and the Earth, were manifest : 

Then thou first-born, and we the giant-race, 

Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms 

Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain ; 

O folly ! for to bear all naked truths, 

And to envisage circumstance, all calm, 

That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well ! 

As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far 

Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though onee 

chiefs ; 
And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth 
In form and shape compact and beautiful, 
In will, in action free, companionship, 
And thousand other signs of purer life ; 
80 on our heels a fresh perfection treads, 



HYPEK10N. *1S 

k power more strong in beauty, born of us 
And fated to excel us, as we pass 
fn glory that old Darkness : nor are we 
Thereby more conquered than by us the rule 
Of shapeless Chaos. Say, doth the dull soil 
Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed, 
And feedeth still, more comely than itself? 
Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves ? 
Or shall the tree be envious of the dove 
Because it cooeth, and hath snowy wings^ 
To wander wherewithal and find its joys ? 
We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughs 
Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves, 
But eagles golden-feather'd, who do tower 
Above us in their beauty, and must reign 
In right thereof; for 'tis the eternal law^ 
That first in beauty should be first in might : 
Yea, by that law, another race may drive 
Our conquerors to mourn as we do now. 
Ilave ye beheld the young God of the Seas, 
My dispossessor ? Have ye seen his face ? 
Have ye beheld his chariot, foam'd along 
By nolle winged creatures he hath made V 
\ saw him on "the calmed waters scud, 
With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, 
That it enforced me to bid sad farewell 
To all my empire ; farewell sad I took, 
And hither came, to see how dolorous fate 
Had wrought upon ye ; and how I might best 
Give consolation in this woe extreme. 
Receive the truth, and let it be your balm." 

Whether through pozed conviction, or disdain. 
They guarded silence, when Oceanus 
Left murmuring, what deepest thought can tell ? 
But so it was, none answer'd for a space, 
Save one whom none regarded, Clymene : 
And yet she answer'd not, only complain'd, 



ffO HYPERION. 

With hectic lips, and eyes up-looking mild, 

Thus wording timidly among, the fierce : 

" O Father ! I am here the simplest voice, 

And all my knowledge is that joy is gone, 

And this thing woe crept in among our hearts, 

f here to remain for ever, as I fear : 

I would not bode of evil, if I thought 

So weak a creature could turn off the help 

Which by just right should come of mighty Gods ; 

Yet let me tell my sorrow, let me tell 

Of what I heard, and how it made me weep, 

And know that we had parted from all hope. 

I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore, 

Where a s*weet clime was breathed from a land 

Of fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers 

Full of calm joy it was, as I of grief; 

Too full of joy and soft delicious warmth ; 

So that I felt a movement in my heart 

To chide, and to reproach that solitude 

With songs of misery, music of our woes ; 

And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell 

And murmur'd into it, and made melody — 

melody no more ! for while I sang, 
And with poor skill let pass into the breeze 
The dull shell's echo, from a bowery strand 
Just opposite, an island of the sea. 

There came enchantment with the shifting wind 
That did both drown and keep alive my ears. 

1 threw my shell away upon the sand, 
And a wave filPd it, as my sense was fill'd 
With that new blissful golden melody. 

A living death was in each gush of sounds, 

Each family of rapturous hurried notes, 

That fell, one after one, yet all at once, 

Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their string 

And then another, then another strain, 

Each like a dove leaving its olive perch, 

With music wing'd instead of silent plumes, 



HYPERION. ttl 

To hover round :ny head, and make me sick 
Of joy and grief at once. Grief overcame, 
And I was stopping up my frantic ears, 
When, past all hindrance of my trembling hands, 
A voice came sweeter, sweeter than all tune, 
And still it cried, * Apollo ! young Apollo ! 
The morning-bright Apollo ! young Apollo ! ' 
I fled, it follow'd me, and cried, ( Apollo 1 ' 
O Father, and O Brethren 1 had ye felt 
Those pains of mine ! O Saturn, hadst thou felt, 
Ye would not call this too indulged tongue 
Presumptuous, in thus venturing to be heard ! * 

So far her voice flow'd on, like timorous brook 
That, lingering along a pebbled coast, 
Doth fear to meet the sea : but sea it met, 
And shudder'd ; for the overwhelming voice 
Of huge Enceladus swallow'd it in wrath : 
The ponderous syllables, like sullen waves 
In the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks, 
Came booming thus, while still upon his arm 
He lean'd ; not rising, from supreme contempt 
" Or shall we listen to the over- wise, 
Or to the over-foolish giant, Gods ? 
Not thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till all 
That rebel Jove's whole armoury were spent, 
Not world on world upon these shoulders piled, 
Could agonize me more than baby-words 
In midst of this dethronement horrible. 
Speak ! roar ! shout ! yell ! ye sleepy Titans all, 
Do ye forget the blows, the buffets vile ? 
Are ye not smitten by a youngling arm ? 
Dost thou forget, sham Monarch of the Waves, 
Thy scalding in the seas ? What 1 have I roused 
Your spleens with so few simple words as these ? 
O joy ! for now I see ye are not lost : 
O joy ! for now I see a thousand eyes 
Wide glaring for revenge." — As this he said, 



222 



HYPERION. 



He lifted up his stature vast, and stood, 

Still without intermission speaking thus : 

" Now ye are flames, I'll tell you how to burn, 

And purge the ether of our enemies ; 

How bo feed fierce the crooked stings of fire, 

And singe away the swollen clouds of Jove, 

Stifling that puny essence in its tent. 

O let him feel the evil he hath done ; 

For though I scorn Oeeanus's lore, 

Much pain have I for more than loss of realms . 

The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled ; 

Those days, ail innocent of scathing war, 

When all the fair Existences of heaven 

Came open-eyed to guess what we would speak :- 

That was before our brows were taught to frown, 

Before our lips knew else but solemn sounds ; 

That was before we knew the winged thing, 

Victory, might be lost, or might be won. 

And be ye mindful that Hyperion, 

Our brightest brother, still is undisgraced — 

Hyperion, lo ! his radiance is here ! " 

All eyes were on Enceladus's face, 
And they bjheld, while still Hyperion's name 
Flew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks, 
A pallid gleam across his features stern : 
Not savage, for he saw full many a God 
Wroth as himself. He look'd upon them all, 
And in each face he saw a gleam of light, 
But splendider in Saturn's, whose hoar locka 
Shone like the bubbling foam about a keel 
When the prow sweeps into a midnight cove 
In pale and silver silence they remain'd, 
Till suddenly a splendour, like the morn, 
Pervaded all the beetling gloomy steeps, 
All the sad spaces of oblivion, 
And every gulf, and every chasm old. 
And every height, and every sullen depthg 



EYPERION. 223 

Voiceless, or hoarse with loud tormented streair a . 
And all the everlasting cataracts, 
And all the headlong torrents far and near, 
Mantled before in darkness and huge shade, 
Now saw the light and made it terrible. 
It was Hyperion : — a granite peak 
His bright feet touch'd, and there he staid to new 
The misery his brilliance had betray'd 
To the most hateful seeing of itself. 
Golden his hair of short Numidian curl, 
Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade 
In midst of his own brightness, like the bulk 
Of Memnon's image at the set of sun 
To one who travels from the dusking East : 
Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memnon's harpj 
He utter'd, while his hands, contemplative, 
He press'd together, and in silence stood. 
Despondence seized again the fallen Gods 
At sight of the dejected King of Day, 
And many hid their faces from the light : 
But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes 
Among the brotherhood ; and, at their glare, 
Uprose Iapetus, and Creiis too, 
And Phorcus, sea-born, and together strode 
To where he tower'd on his eminence. 
There those four shouted forth old Saturn's name ; 
Hyperion from the peak loud answer'd " Saturn ! * 
Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods, 
In whose face was no joy, though all the Gods 
Gave from their hollow throats the name of 
" Saturn ! w 



m HYPERIOfit. 



BOOK m. 

Thus iii alternate uproar and sad peace, 

Amazed were those Titans utterly. 

O leave them, Muse ! O leave them to their woflf 

For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire : 

A solitary sorrow best befits 

Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief 

Leave them, O Muse ! for thou anon wilt find 

Many a fallen old Divinity 

Wandering in vain about bewilder'd shores. 

Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 

And not a wind of heaven but will breathe 

In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute ; 

For lo 1 'tis for the Father of all verse. 

Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue. 

Let the rose glow intense and warm the air, 

And let the clouds of even and of morn 

Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills ; 

Let the red wine within the goblet boil, 

Cold as a bubbling well ; let faint-lipp'd shells, 

On sands or in great deeps, vermilion turn 

Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid 

Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surprised. 

Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades, 

Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green, 

And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, And beecbj 

In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song, 

And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath the shad* 

Apollo is once more the golden theme ! 

Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun 

Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers ? 

Together had he left his mother fair 

And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower, 

And in the morning twilight wander'd forth 

Beside the osiers of a rivulet, 

Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale. 



RYPE&10H MS 

Tho nightingale bad ceased, an. I a few stars 
Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrmh 
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle 
There was no covert, no retired cave 
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves, 
Though scarcely heard in many a green recess. 
He listen'd, and he wept, and his bright tears 
Went trickling down the golden bow he held. 
Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood, 
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard \ 
With solemn step an awful Goddess came, 
And there was purport in her looks for him, 
Which he with eager guess began to read 
Perplex'd, the while melodiously he said : 
" How earnest thou over the unfooted sea ? 
Or hath that antique mien and robed form 
Moved in these vales invisible till now ? 
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er 
The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone 
[n cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced 
The rustle of those ample skirts about 
These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers 
Lift up their heads, and still the whisper pass'd. 
jroddess ! I have beheld those eyes before, 
4nd their eternal calm, and all that face, 
3r I have dream'd." — "Yes," said the supreme 

slnpe, 
*• Thou hast dream'd of me ; and awaking up 
Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side, 
•Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the \ast 
Unwearied ear of the whole universe 
Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth 
Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't net strange 
That thou should st weep, so gifted ? Tell noe, yc uth, 
What sorrow thou canst feel ; for I am sad 
When thou dost shed a tear : explain thy griefs 
To one who in this lonely isle hath been 
The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life, 
U 



)** HYPERION. 

From the young day when first thy infant hand 

Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm 

Could bend that bow heroic to all times. 

Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power 

Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones 

For prophecies of thee, and for the sake 

Of loveliness new-born." — Apollo then, 

With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, 

Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat 

Throbb'd with the syllables : — " Mnemosyne ! 

Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how ; 

Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest ? 

Why should I strive to show what from thy lips 

Would come no mystery ? For me, dark, dark, 

And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes: 

I strive to search wherefore I am so sad, 

Until a melancholy numbs my limbs ; 

And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, 

Like one who once had wings. — O why should I 

Feel cursed and thwarted, when the liegeless air 

Yields to my step aspirant ? why should I 

Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet ? 

Goddess benign ! point forth some unknown thing 

Are there not other regions than this isle ? 

What are the stars ? There is the sun, the sun ! 

And the most patient brilliance of the moon ! 

And stars by thousands I Point me out the way 

To any one particular beauteous star, 

And I will flit into it with my lyre, 

And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss. 

I have heard the cloudy thunder : Where is power 

Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity 

Makes this alarum in the elements, 

While I here idle listen on the shores 

In fearless yet in aching ignorance ? 

O tell me, lonely Goddess ! by thy harp, 

That waileth every morn and eventide, 

Tell me why thus I rave, about these grovei 1 



HYPERION. 2f? 

Mate thou remainest — Mute ? yet I can read 

A wondrous lesson in thy silent face : 

Knowledge enormous makes a God of me. 

Names, deeds, grey legends, dire events, rebellions, 

Majesties, sovran voices, agonies, 

Creations and destroyings, all at once 

Pour into the wide hollows of my brain, 

And deify me, as if some blithe wine 

Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk, 

And so become immortal." — Thus the God, 

While his enkindled eyes, with level glance 

Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept 

Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne. 

Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush 

All the immortal fairness of his limbs : 

Most like the struggle at the gate of death ; 

Or like still to one who should take leave 

Of pale immortal death, and with a pang 

As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse 

Die into life : so young Apollo anguish'd ; 

His very hair, his golden tresses famed 

Kept undulation round his eager neck. 

During the pain Mnemosyne upheld 

Her arms as one who prophesied. — At lengtk 

Apollo shriek'd ; — and lo ! from all his limbf 

Celestial 




MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



^Whst mora felicity can fall to creature 
to ©lUoy delight with liberty ? 

&j£4 of the Buiterfiy. — SPSMiae 




DEDICATION. 



TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. 

Globy and loveliness have pass'd away ; 

For if we wander out in early morn, 

No wreathed incense do we see upborne 
Into the east to meet the smiling day: 
No crowds of nymphs soft-voiced and young and g&} 

In woven baskets bringing ears of corn, 

Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn 
The shrine of Flora in her early May. 
But there are left delights as high as these. 

And I shall ever bless my destiny, 
That in a time when underpleasant trees 

Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free, 
k leafv luxury, seeing I could please 

Witn these poor offerings, a man like thee 




MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Places of nestling green for poets made. — Story of RinUmi 

I STOOD tiptoe upon a little hill, 
The air was cooling, and so very still, 
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride 
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, 
Their scanty-leaved, and finely-tapering stems, 
Had not yet lost the starry diadems 
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn. 
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new- 
shorn, 
And fresh from the clear brook ; sweetly they slept 
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept 
A little noiseless noise among the leaves, 
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves ; 
For not the faintest motion could be seen 
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green. 
There was wide wandering for the greediest ey©p 
To peer about upon variety ; 
Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim, 
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim ; 
To picture out the quaint and curious bending 
Of a fresh woodland alley never-ending: 
Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves, 
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselve* 
I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free 
As though the fanning wings of Mercury 
Had play'd upon my heels : I was light-hearted, 
And many pleasures to my vision started; 
So I straightway began to pluck a posy 
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy. 



M* MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them, 
Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them ! 
And let a lush laburnum overs weep them, 
And let long grass grow round the roots, to keep 

them 
Moist, cool, and green ; and shade the violets, 
That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. 

A filbert-hedge with wild-briar overt wined, 
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind 
Upon their summer thrones ; there too should be 
The frequent-chequer of a youngling tree, 
That with a score of light green brethren shoots 
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots : 
Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters, 
Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters, 
The spreading blue-bells : it may haply mourn 
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn 
From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly 
By infant hands, left on the path to die. 

Open afresh your round of starry folds, 
Ye ardent marigolds 1 

Dry up the moisture from your golden lids, 
For great Apollo bids 

That in these days your praises should be sung 
On many harps, which he has lately strung ; 
And when again your dewiness he kisses, 
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses : 
So haply when I rove in some far vale, 
His mighty voice may come upon the gale. 

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight : 
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white. 
And taper fingers catching at all things, 
To bind them all about with tiny rings. 
Linger awhile upon some bending planks 
That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 233 

And watch intently Nature's gentle doings, 

They will be found softer than ring-doves' cooings. 

How silent comes the water round that bend ! 

Not the minutest whisper does it send 

To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass 

S'owly accross the chequer'd shadows pass. 

Why you might read two sonnets, ere they reach 

To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach 

A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; 

Where swarms of minnows show their little heads. 

Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams, 

To taste the luxury of sunny beams 

Temper'd with coolness. How they ever wrestle 

With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle 

Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand ! 

If you but scantily hold out the hand, 

That very instant not one will remain 

But turn your eye, and they are there again. 

The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses. 

And cool themselves among the emerald tresses ; 

The while they cool themselves, they freshness give, 

And moisture, that the bowery green may live : 

So keeping up an interchange of favours, 

Like good men in the truth of their behaviours. 

Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop 

From low-hung branches: little space they stop; 

But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek ; 

Then off at once, as in a wanton freak : 

Or perhaps, to show their black and golden wings, 

Pausing upon their yellow flutterings. 

Were I in such a place, I sure should pray 

That nought less sweet might call my thought! 

away, 
Than the soft rustle of a maiden's gown 
Fanning away the dandelion's down ; 
Than the light music of her nimble toes 
Patting against the sorrel as she goes. 
How she would start, and blush, thus to be caught 



SS4 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Playing in all her innocence of thought ! 
O let me lead her gently o'er the brook, 
Watch her half-smiling lips and downward look 
O let me for one moment touch her wrist ; 
Let me one moment to her breathing list ; 
And as she leaves me, may she often turn 
Her fair eyes looking through her locks aubume 
What next ? a tuft of evening primroses, 
O'er which the mind may hover till it dozes; 
O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep, 
But that 'tis ever startled by the leap 
Of buds into ripe flowers ; or by the flitting 
Of divers moths, that aye their rest are quitting 
Or by the moon lifting her silver rim 
Above a cloud, and with a gradual swim 
Coming into the blue with all her light. 
O Maker of sweet poets ! dear delight 
Of this fair world and all its gentle livers ; 
Spangler of clouds, halo of crystal rivers, 
Mingler with leaves, and dew and tumbling sireau 
Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, 
Lover of loneliness, and wandering, 
Of upcast eye, and tender pondering ! 
Thee must I praise above all other glories 
That smile us on to tell delightful stories. 
For what has made the sage or poet write 
But the fair paradise of Nature's light ? 
In the calm grandeur of a sober line, 
We see the waving of the mountain pine ; 
And when a tale is beautifully staid, 
We feel the safety of a hawthorn glade : 
When it is moving on luxurious wings, 
The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings: 
Fair dewy roses brush against our faces, 
And flowering laurels spring from diamond vase* 
O'erhead we see the jasmine and sweet-briar, 
And bloomy grapes laughing from green attire 
While at our feet, the voice of crystal bubble* 



MISCELLANEOUS POEM 8. 2$* 

Charms us at once away from all our troubles : 
So that we feel uplifted from the world, 
Walking upon the white clouds wreath'd and curlU 
So felt he, who first told how Psyche went 
On the smooth wind to realms of wonderment ; 
What Psyche felt, and Love, when their full lips 
First touch'd ; what amorous and fondling nips^ 
They gave each other's cheeks ; with all their sighs, 
And" how they kist each other's tremulous eyes : 
The silver lamp, — the ravishment — the wonder — 
The darkness — loneliness — the fearful thunder; 
Their woes gone by, and both to heaven up flown, 
To bow for gratitude before Jove's throne. 
So did he feel, who pull'd the boughs aside, 
That we might look into a forest wide, 
To catch a glimpse of Fauns, and Dryades 
Coming with softest rustle through the trees ; 
And garlands woven of flowers wild, and sweet, 
Upheld on ivory wrists, or sporting feet : 
Telling us how fair trembling Syrinx fled 
Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread. 
Poor Nvmph, — poor Pan, — how did he weep tt 

find 
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind 
Along the reedy stream 1 a half-heard strain, 
Full of sweet desolation — balmy pain. 

What first inspired a bard of old to sing 
Narcissus pining o'er the untainted spring ? 
In some delicious ramble, he had found 
A little space, with boughs all woven round ; 
And in the midst of all, a clearer pool 
Than e'er reflected in its pleasant cool 
The blue sky, here and there serenely peeking, 
Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping. 
And on the bank a lonely flower he spied, 
A meek and forlorn flower, with nought of pride, 
Drooping its reauty o'er the watery clearness, 



136 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

To woo its own sad image into nearness : 
Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move ; 
But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love, 
So while the poet stood in this sweet spot, 
Some fainter gleamings o'er his fancy shot* 
Nor was it long ere he had told the tale 
Of young Narcissus, and sad Echo's bale. 

Where had he been, from whose warm head 
outflew 
That sweetest of all songs, that ever new, 
That aye refreshing, pure deliciousness, 
Coming ever to bless 

The wanderer by moonlight ? to him bringing 
Shapes from the invisible world, unearthly singing 
From out the middle air, from flowery nests, 
And from the pillowy silkiness that rests 
Full in the speculation of the stars. 
Ah ! surely he had burst our mortal bars ; 
Into some wondrous region he had gone, 
To search for thee, divine Endymion ! 

He was a Poet, sure a lover too, 
Who stood on Latmus' top, what time there blew 
Soft breezes from the myrtle vale below ; 
And brought, in faintness solemn, sweet, and slow, 
A hymn from Dian's temple ; while upswelling, 
The incense went to her own starry dwelling. 
But though her face was clear as infants' eyes, 
Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice, 
The poet wept at her so piteous fate, 
Wept that such beauty should be desolate 2 
So in fine wrath some golden sounds he won, 
And gave meek Cynthia her Endymion 

Queen of the wide air ; thou most lovely queea 
Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen I 
As thou exceedest all things in thv shine, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 237 

So every tale does this sweet tale of thine. 
O for three words of honey, that I might 
Tell but one wonder of thy bridal night i 

Where distant ships !o ieoin ro snow their keel* 
Phoebus awhile delay'd his mighty wheels, 
And turn'd to smile upon thy bashful eyes, 
Ere he his unseen pomp would solemnize. 
The evening weather was so bright, and clear, 
That men of health were of unusual cheer ; 
Stepping like Homer at the trumpet's call, 
Or young Apollo on the pedestal : 
And lovely women were as fair and warm, 
As Venus looking sideways in alarm. 
The breezes were ethereal, and pure. 
And crept through half-closed lattices to cure 
The languid sick : it cooi'd their fever'd sleep, 
And soothed them into slumbers full and deep. 
Soon they awoke clear-eyed: nor burn'd witfe 

thirsting, 
Nor with hot fingers, nor with temples bursting : 
And springing up, they met the wondering sight 
Of their dear friends, nigh foolish with delight ; 
Who feel their arms, and breasts, and kiss, and stars 
And on their placid foreheads part the hair. 
Young men and maidens at each other gazed, » 

With hands held back, and motionless, amazed 
To see the brightness in each other's eyes ; 
And so they stood, fill'd with a sweet surprise, 
Until their tongues were loosed in poesy. 
Therefore no lover did of anguish die : 
But the soft numbers, in that moment spoken, 
Made silken ties, that never may be broken. 
Cynthia ! I cannot tell the greater blisses 
That follow'd thine, and thy dear shepherd's kisaef 
Was there a poet born ? — But now no more — 
My wandering spirit must no farther soar 



238 MISCELLANEOUS J J OEMS 



SPECIMEN OF AN INDUCTION TO A 
POEM. 

LO ! I must tell a tale of chivalry ; 
For large white plumes are dancing in mint 
eye. 
Not like the formal crest of latter days 
But bending in a thousand graceful ways, 
So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand, 
Or e/en the touch of Archimago's wand. 
Could charm them into such an attitude. 
We must think rather, that in playful mood, 
Some mountain breeze had turn'd its chief delight 
To show this wonder of its gentle might. 
Lo ! I must tell a tale of chivalry ; 
For while I muse, the lance points slantingly 
Athwart the morning air ; some lady sweet, 
Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet, 
From the worn top of some old battlement 
Hails it with tears, her stout defender sent; 
And from her own pure self no joy dissembling v 
Wraps round her ample robe with happy tren> 

bling. 
Sometimes when the good knight his rest could 

take, 
It is reflected, clearly, in a lake, 
With the young ashen boughs, 'gainst which it rest* 
And th' half-seen mossiness of linnets' nests. 
Ah ! shall I ever tell its cruelty, . 
When the fire flashes from a warrior's eye, 
And his tremendous hand is grasping it, 
And his dark brow for very wrath is knit ? 
Or when his spirit, with more calm intent 
Leaps to the honours of a tournament, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 239 

And makes the gazers round about the ring 

Stare at the grandeur of the balancing ? 

No, no ! this is far off: — then how shall I 

Revive the dying tones of minstrelsy, 

Which linger yet about long gothic arches, 

In dark green ivy, and among wild larches ? 

How sing the splendour of the revelries, 

When butts of wine are drank off to the lees ? 

And that bright lance, against the fretted wall, 

Beneath the shade of stately banneral, 

Is slung with shining cuirass, sword, and shield ? 

Where ye may see a spur in bloody field, 

Light-footed damsels move with gentle paces 

Round the wide hall, and show their happy faces : 

Or stand in courtly talk by fives and sevens : 

Like those fair stars that twinkle in the heavens. 

Yet must I tell a tale of chivalry : 

Or wherefore comes that knight so proudly by ? 

Wherefore more proudly does the ger.tie knight 

Rein in the swelling of his ample might ? 

Spenser ! thy brows are arched, open, kind, 

And come like a clear sun-rise to my mind ; 

And always does my heart with pleasure dance, 

When I think on thy noble countenance : 

Where never yet was aught more earthly see» 

Than the pure freshness of thy laurels green. 

Therefore, great bard, I not so fearfully 

Call on thy gentle spirit to hover nigh 

My daring steps : or if thy tender care, 

Thus startled unaware, 

Be jealous that the foot of other wight 

Should madly follow that bright path of light 

Traced by thy loved Libertas; he will speak, 

And tell thee that my prayer is very meek ; 

That I will follow with clue reverence, 

And start with awe at mine own strange pretence 

Him thou wilt hear ; so I will rest in hope 

To see wide plains, fair trees, and lawny slope ; 



140 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The morn, the eve, the light, the shade, the 

flowers ; 
Clear streams, smooth lakes, and overlooking 

towers. 



CALIDORE. 

A FRAGMENT. 

rOUNG Calidore is paddling o'er the lake ; 
His healthful spirit eager and awake 
To feel the beauty of a silent eve, 
Which seem'd full loth this happy world to leave 
The light dwelt o'er the scene so lingeringly. 
He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky, 
And smiles at the far clearness all around, 
Until his heart is well nigh overwound, 
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green 
Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean 
So elegantly o'er the waters' brim 
And show their blossoms trim. 
Scarce can his clear and nimble eyesight follow 
The freaks and dartings of the black-wing'd swal 

low, 
Delighting much, to see it half at rest, 
Dip so refreshingly its wings and breast 
Gainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon, 
The widening circles into nothing gone. 

And now the sharp keel of his little boat 
Comes up with ripple, and with easy float 
And glides into a bed of water-lilies : 
Broad-leaved are they, and their white canopief 
Are upward turn'd to catch the heavens' dew. 
Near to a little island's point they grew ; 
Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view 



HTPERIO^ **l 

Tho nightingale bad ceased, and a few stars 
Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrurli 
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle 
Thero was no covert, no retired cave 
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves, 
Though scarcely heard in many a green receas. 
He listen'd, and he wept, and his bright tears 
Went trickling down the golden bow he held. 
Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood, 
While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard \ 
With solemn step an awful Goddess came, 
And there was purport in her looks for him, 
Which he with eager guess began to read 
Perplex'd, the while melodiously he said : 
" How earnest thou over the unfooted sea ? 
Or hath that antique mien and robed form 
Moved in these vales invisible till now ? 
Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er 
The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone 
[n cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced 
The rustle of those ample skirts about 
These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers 
Lift up their heads, and still the whisper pass'd. 
jroddess ! I have beheld those eyes before, 
4nd their eternal calm, and all that face, 
3r I have dream'd." — "Yes," said the supreme 

shape, 
u Thou bast dream'd of me ; and awaking up 
Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side, 
Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers, all the \ast 
Unwearied ear of the whole universe 
Listen'd in pain and pleasure at the birth 
Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't net strange 
That thou should st weep, so gifted ? Tell ncie, yc uth, 
What sorrow thou canst feel ; for I am sad 
When thou dost shed a tear : explain thy griefs 
To one who in this lonely isle hath been 
The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life, 
16 



**C HYPERION. 

from the young day when first thy infant hand 

Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm 

Could bend that bow heroic to all times. 

Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power 

Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones 

For prophecies of thee, and for the sake 

Of loveliness new-born." — Apollo then, 

With sudden scrutiny and gloornless eyes, 

Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat 

Throbb'd with the syllables : — " Mnemosyne ! 

Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how ; 

Why shouM I telf thee what thou so well seest ? 

Why should I strive to show what from thy lips 

Would come no mystery ? For me, dark, dark, 

And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes: 

I strive to search wherefore I am so sad, 

Until a melancholy numbs my limbs ; 

And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, 

Like one who once had wings. — O why should 1 

Feel cursed and thwarted, when the liegeless air 

Yields to my step aspirant ? why should I 

Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet ? 

Goddess benign ! point forth some unknown thing 

Are there not other regions than this isle ? 

What are the stars ? There is the sun, the sun ! 

And the most patient brilliance of the moon 1 

And stars by thousands ! Point me out the way 

To any one particular beauteous star, 

And I will flit into it with my lyre, 

And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss. 

I have heard the cloudy thunder : Where is power 

Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity 

Makes this alarum in the elements, 

While I here idle listen on the shores 

In fearless yet in aching ignorance ? 

O tell me, lonely Goddess ! by thy harp, 

That waileth every morn and eventide, 

Tell me why thus I rave, about these grovei ! 



HYPERION. 2*» 

Mate thou remainest — Mute ? yet I can read 

A wondrous lesson in thy silent face : 

Knowledge enormous makes a God of me. 

Names, deeds, grey legends, dire events, rebellions* 

Majesties, sovran voices, agonies, 

Creations and destroyings, all at once 

Pour into the wide hollows of my brain, 

And deify me, as if some blithe wine 

Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk, 

And so become immortal." — Thus the God, 

While his enkindled eyes, with level glance 

Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept 

Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne. 

Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush 

All the immortal fairness of his limbs : 

Most like the struggle at the gate of death ; 

Or like still to one who should take leave 

Of pale immortal death, and with a pang 

As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse 

Die into life : so young Apollo anguish'd ; 

His very hair, his golden tresses famed 

Kept undulation round his eager neck. 

During the pain Mnemosyne upheld 

Her arms as one who prophesied. — At lengtl 

Apollo shriek'd ; — and lo ! from all his lirnbf 

Celestial 




miscellaneous poems 



^bat icons felicity can fall to cres-ture 
i Hberty ? 
%m Buiierfiy. - Spkeis^ 



to ei^oy delight with liberty ? 




DEDICATION. 



TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. 

Glory and loveliness have pass'd away ; 

For if we wander out in early morn, 

No wreathed incense do we see upborne 
Into the east to meet the smiling day: 
No crowds of nymphs soft-voiced and young and gsf 

In woven baskets bringing ears of corn, 

Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn 
The shrine of Flora ia her early May. 
But there are left delights as high as these. 

And I shall ever bless my destiny, 
That in a time when under pleasant trees 

Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free, 
k leafv luxury, seeing I could please 

With these poor offerings, a man like thee 




MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Places of nestling green for poets made. — Story of Rimini 

I STOOD tiptoe upon a little hill, 
The air was cooling, and so very still, 
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride 
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, 
Their scanty-leaved, and finely-tapering stems, 
Had not yet lost the starry diadems 
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn. 
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new- 
shorn, 
And fresh from the clear brook ; sweetly they slept 
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept 
A little noiseless noise among the leaves, 
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves ; 
For not the faintest motion could be seen 
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green. 
There was wide wandering for the greediest eye> 
To peer about upon variety ; 
Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim, 
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim : 
To picture out the quaint and curious bending 
Of a fresh woodland alley never-ending: 
Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves, 
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves. 
I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free 
As though the fanning wings of Mercury 
Had play'd upon my heels : I was light-hearted, 
And many pleasures to my vision started ; 
So I straightway began to pluck a posy 
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy. 



M2 MISCELLANEOUS POEMR. 

A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them*, 
Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them ! 
And let a lush laburnum overs weep them, 
And let long grass grow round the roots, to keep 

them 
Moist, cool, and green ; and shade the violets, 
That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. 

A filbert-hedge with wild-briar overtwined, 
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind 
Upon their summer thrones ; there too should be 
The frequent-chequer of a youngling tree, 
That with a score of light green brethren shoots 
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots : 
Round which is heard a spring-head of clear watery 
Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters, 
The spreading blue-bells : it may haply mourn 
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn 
From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly 
By infant hands, left on the path to die. 

Open afresh your round of starry folds, 
Ye ardent marigolds ! 

Dry up the moisture from your golden lids, 
For great Apollo bids 

That in these days your praises should be sung 
On many harps, which he has lately strung ; 
And when again your dewiness he kisses, 
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses : 
So haply when I rove in some far vale, 
His mighty voice may come upon the gale. 

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight : 
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white. 
And taper fingers catching at all things, 
To bind them all about with tiny rings. 
Linger awhile upon some bending planks 
That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks* 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 233 

And watch intently Nature's gentle doings, 

They will be found softer than ring-doves' cooings. 

How silent conies the water round that bend ! 

Not the minutest whisper does it send 

To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass 

S'owly accross the chequer'd shadows pass. 

Why you might read two sonnets, ere they reach 

To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach 

A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; 

Where swarms of minnows show their little heads. 

Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams, 

To taste the luxury of sunny beams 

Temper'd with coolness. How they ever wrestle 

With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle 

Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand ! 

If you but scantily hold out the hand, 

That very instant not one will remain 

But turn your eye, and they are there again. 

The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses, 

And cool themselves among the emerald tresses ; 

The while they cool themselves, they freshness give, 

And moisture, that the bowery green may live : 

So keeping up an interchange of favours, 

Like good men in the truth of their behaviours. 

Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop 

From low-hung branches : little space they stop ; 

But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek ; 

Then off at once, as in a wanton freak : 

Or perhaps, to show their black and golden wings, 

Pausing upon their yellow flutterings. 

Were I in such a place, I sure should pray 

That nought less sweet might call my thoughti 

away, 
Than the soft rustle of a maiden's gown 
Fanning away the dandelion's down ; 
Than the light music of her nimble toes 
Patting against the sorrel as she goes. 
How she would start, and blush, thus to be caught 



S*4 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Playing in all her innocence of thought ! 

O let me lead her gently o'er the brook, 

Watch her half-smiling lips and downward look 

O let me for one moment touch her wrist ; 

Let me one moment to her breathing list ; 

And as she leaves me, may she often turn 

Her fair eyes looking through her locks auburne 

What next ? a tuft of evening primroses, 

O'er which the mind may hover till it dozes; 

O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep, 

But that 'tis ever startled by the leap 

Of buds into ripe flowers ; or by the flitting 

Of divers moths, that aye their rest are quitting 

Or by the moon lifting her silver rim 

Above a cloud, and with a gradual swim 

Coming into the blue with all her light. 

O Maker of sweet poets ! dear delight 

Of this fair world and all its gentle livers ; 

Spangler of clouds, halo of crystal rivers, 

Mingler with leaves, and dew and tumbling streaa 

Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams, 

Lover of loneliness, and wandering, 

Of upcast eye, and tender pondering ! 

Thee must I praise above all other glories 

That smile us on to tell delightful stories. 

For what has made the sage or poet write 

But the fair paradise, of Nature's light ? 

In the calm grandeur of a sober line, 

We see the waving of the mountain pine ; 

And when a tale is beautifully staid, 

We feel the safety of a hawthorn glade : 

When it is moving on luxurious wings, 

The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings: 

Fair dewy roses brush against our faces, 

And flowering laurels spring from diamond vaset 

O'erhead we see the jasmine and sweet-briar, 

And bloomy grapes laughing from green attire 

While at our feet, the voice of crystal bubble* 



MISCELLANEOUS P0EM8. 2M 

Charms us at once away from all our troubles : 
So that we feel uplifted from the world, 
Walking upon the white clouds wreath'd and curl'd 
So felt he, who first told how Psyche went 
On the smooth wind to realms of wonderment; 
What Psyche felt, and Love, when their full lips 
First touch'd ; what amorous and fondling nips 
They gave each other's cheeks ; with all their sighs, 
And how they kist each other's tremulous eyes : 
The silver lamp, — the ravishment — the wonder — 
The darkness — loneliness — the fearful thunder; 
Their woes gone by, and both to heaven up flown, 
To bow for gratitude before Jove's throne. 
So did he feel, who pull'd the boughs aside, 
That we might lock into a forest wide, 
To catch a glimpse of Fauns, and Dryades 
Coming with softest rustle through the trees ; 
And garlands woven of flowers wild, and sweet, 
Upheld on ivory wrists, or sporting feet : 
Telling us how fair trembling Syrinx fled 
Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread. 
Poor Nvmph, — poor Pan, — how did he weep tf 

find 
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind 
Along the reedy stream I a half-heard strain, 
Full of sweet desolation — balmy pain. 

What first inspired a bard of old to sing 
Narcissus pining o'er the untainted spring ? 
In some delicious ramble, he had found 
A little space, with boughs all woven round ; 
And in the midst of all, a clearer pool 
Than e'er reflected in its pleasant cool 
The blue sky, here and there serenely peeping, 
Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping. 
And on the bank a lonely flower he spied, 
A meek and forlorn flower, with nought of pride, 
Drooping its Veauty o'er the watery clearness, 



*36 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

To woo its own sad image into nearness : 
Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move ; 
But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love. 
So while the poet stood in this sweet spot, 
Some fainter gleamings o'er his fancy shot* 
Nor was it long ere he had told the tale 
Of young Narcissus, and sad Echo's bale. 

Where had he been, from whose warm head 
outflew 
That sweetest of all songs, that ever new, 
That aye refreshing, pure deliciousness, 
Coming ever to bless 

The wanderer by moonlight ? to him bringing 
Shapes from the invisible world, unearthly singing 
From out the middle air, from flowery nests, 
And from the pillowy silkiness that rests 
Full in the speculation of the stars. 
Ah ! surely he had burst our mortal bars ; 
Into some wondrous region he had gone, 
To search for thee, divine Endymion ! 

He was a Poet, sure a lover too, 
Who stood on Latmus' top, what time there blew 
Soft breezes from the myrtle vale below ; 
And brought, in faintness solemn, sweet, and slow, 
A hymn from Dian's temple ; while upswelling, 
The incense went to her own starry dwelling 
But though her face was clear as infants' eyes, 
Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice, 
The poet wept at her so piteous fate, 
Wept that such beauty should be desolate: 
So in fine wrath some golden sounds he won, 
And gave meek Cynthia her Endymion 

Queen of the wide air ; thou most lovely queen 
Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen 1 
As thou exceedest all things in thv shine, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 237 

So every tale does this sweet tale of thine. 
O for three words of honey, that 1 might 
Tell but one wonder of thy bridal night i 

Where distant ships Iz s^tiu ro show their keel* 
Phoebus awhile delay'd his mighty wheels, 
And turn'd to smile upon thy bashful eyes, 
Ere he his unseen pomp would solemnize. 
The evening weather was so bright, and clear, 
That men of health were of unusual cheer ; 
Stepping like Homer at the trumpet's call, 
Or young Apollo on the pedestal : 
And lovely women were as fair and warm, 
As Venus looking sideways in alarm. 
The breezes were ethereal, and pure, 
And crept through half-closed lattices to cure 
The languid sick : it cool'd their fever'd sleep, 
And soothed them into slumbers full and deep. 
Soon they awoke clear-eyed: nor burn'd witfc 

thirsting, 
Nor with hot fingers, nor with temples bursting : 
And springing up, they met the wondering sight 
Of their dear friends, nigh foolish with delight ; 
Who feel their arms, and breasts, and kiss, and stara 
And on their placid foreheads part the hair. 
Young men and maidens at each other gazed, 
With hands held back, and motionless, amazed 
To see the brightness in each other's eyes ; 
And so they stood, fill'd with a sweet surprise, 
Until their tongues were loosed in poesy. 
Therefore no lover did of anguish die : 
But the soft numbers, in that moment spoken, 
Made silken ties, that never may be broken. 
Cynthia ! I cannot tell the greater blisses 
That follow'd thine, and thy dear shepherd's kissef 
Was there a poet born ? — But now no more — 
My wandering spirit must no farther soar 



138 MISCELLANEOUS FOLMS 



SPECIMEN OF AN INDUCTION TO A 
POEM. 

LO ! I must tell a tale of chivalry ; 
For large white plumes are dancing in mi»€ 
eye. 
Not like the formal crest of latter days 
But bending in a thousand graceful ways, 
So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand, 
Or e'en the touch of Archimago'fl wand. 
Could charm them into such an attitude. 
We must think rather, that in playful mood, 
Some mountain breeze had turn'd its chief delight 
To show this wonder of its gentle might. 
Lo ! I must tell a tale of chivalry ; 
For while I muse, the lance points slantingly 
Athwart the morning air ; some lady sweet, 
Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet, 
From the worn top of some old battlement 
Hails it with tears, her stout defender sent; 
And from her own pure self no joy dissembling^ 
Wraps round her ample robe with happy trem- 
bling. 
Sometimes when the good knight his rest could 

take, 
It is reflected, clearly, in a lake, 
With the young ashen boughs, 'gainst which it rest* 
And th' half-seen mossiness of linnets' nests. 
Ah ! shall I ever tell its cruelty, 
When the lire flashes from a warrior's eye, 
And his tremendous hand is grasping it, 
And his dark brow for very wrath is knit ? 
Or when his spirit, with more calm intent 
J^eapg to the honours of a tournament, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 239 

And makes the gazers round about the ring 

Stare at the grandeur of the balancing? 

No, no ! this is far off: — then how shall I 

Revive the dying tones of minstrels}', 

Which linger yet about long gothic arches, 

In dark green ivy, and among wild larches? 

How sing the splendour of the revelries, 

When butts of wine are drank off to the lees ? 

And that bright lance, against the fretted wall, 

Beneath the shade of stately banneral, 

Is slung with shining cuirass, sword, and shield ? 

Where ye may see a spur in bloody field, 

Light-footed damsels move with gentle paces 

Round the wide hall, and show their happy faces : 

Or stand in courtly talk by fives and sevens: 

Like those fair stars that twinkle in the heavens. 

Yet must I tell a tale of chivalry : 

Or wherefore comes that knight so proudly by ? 

Wherefore more proudly does the ger.ile knight 

Rein in the swelling of his ample might ? 

Spenser ! thy brows are arched, open, kind, 

And come like a clear sun-rise to my mind ; 

And always does my heart with pleasure dance, 

When I think on thy noble countenance : 

Where never yet was aught more earthly seea 

Than the pure freshness of thy laurels green. 

Therefore, great bard, I not so fearfully 

Call on thy gentle spirit to hover nigh 

My daring steps : or if thy tender care, 

Thus startled unaware, 

Be jealous that the foot of other wight 

Should madly follow that bright path of light 

Traced by thy loved Libertas ; he will speak, 

And tell thee that my prayer is very meek ; 

That I will follow with due reverence, 

And start with awe at mine own strange pretence 

Him thou wilt hear ; so I will rest in hope 

To gee w?de plains, fair trees, and lawny slope ; 



240 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The morn, the eve, the light, the shade, the 

flowers ; 
Clear streams, smooth lakes, and overlooking 

towers. 



CALIDORE. 

A FRAGMENT. 

yOUNG Calidore is paddling o'er the lake ; 
His healthful spirit eager and awake 
To feel the beauty of a silent eve, 
Which seem'd full loth this happy world to leave 
The light dwelt o'er the scene so lingeringly. 
He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky, 
And smiles at the far clearness all around, 
Until his heart is well nigh overwound, 
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green 
Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean 
So elegantly o'er the waters' brim 
And show their blossoms trim. 
Scarce can his clear and nimble eyesight follow 
The freaks and dartings of the black-wing'd swai 

low, 
Delighting much, to see it half at rest, 
Dip so refreshingly its wings and breast 
*Cainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon, 
The widening circles into nothing gone. 

And now the sharp keel of his little boat 
Comes up with ripple, and with easy float 
And glides into a bed of water-lilies : 
Broad-leaved are they, and their white canopies 
Are upward turn'd to catch the heavens' dew. 
Near to a little island's point they grew ; 
Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 25* 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on ; 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd 

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone : 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leaves 

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; 
Bold Lover, never, never, canst thou kiss, 
1 hough winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve 
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss. 

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair ! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed 

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu ; 
And, happy melodist, unwearied, 

For ever piping songs for ever new ; 
More happy love ! more happy, happy love ! 

For ever warm, and still to be enjoy'd, 
For ever panting and for ever young ; 
All breathing human passion far above, 

That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloy'd, 
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? 

To that green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Lead'st thou that heifer* lowing at the skies, 

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest IP 
What little town by river or sea-shore, 

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn ? 
Ah little town, thy streets for evermore 

Will silent be ; and not a soul to tell 
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 
Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 

With forest branches and the trodden weed ; 
Thou, silent form 1 dost tease us out of thougtti 

Am doth eternity : Cold Pastoral ! 
17 



158 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

When old age shall this generation waste, 
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say*8t, 
" Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know 



o 



ODE TO PSYCHE. 
GODDESS ! hear these tuneless number* 



By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, 
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung, 

Even into thine own soft-conched ear : 
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see 

The winged Psyche with awake n'd eyes ? 
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly, 

And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, 
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side 

In deepest grass, beneath the whispering roof 

Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran 
A brooklet, scarce espied : 
'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed, 

Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian. 
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass ; 

Their arms embraced, and their pinions too ; 

Their lips touch'd not, bat had not bade adieu. 
As if disjoined by soft-bar ded slumber, 
And ready still past kisse5; to outnumber 

At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love : 
The winded bo 1- 1 knew ; 

But who wast thou, happy, happy dove ' 
His Psyche true ! 
latest-born and loveLest vision far 

Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy I 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 251 

Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-regionM star, 

Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky ; 
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none, 

Nor altar heap'd with flowers ; 
Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan 

Upon the midnight hours ; 
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet 

From chain-swung censer teeming ; 
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat 

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. 
O brightest ! though too late for antique vows, 

Too, too late for the fond believing lyre, 
When holy were the haunted forest boughs, 

Holy the air, the water, and the fire ; 
Yet even in these days so far retired 

From happy pieties, thy lucent fans, 

Fluttering among the faint Olympians, 
F see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired. 

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan 
Upon the midnight hours ! 
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sw8et 

From swinged censer teeming : 
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat 

Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. 

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane 

In some untrodden region of my mind, 
Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant 
pain, 

Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind : 
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees 

Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep 
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, 

The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep ; 
And in the midst of this wide quietness 
A rosy sanctuary will I dress 
With the wreathed trellis of a working brain, 

With buds, and bells, and stars without a 



J6C MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, 

Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same 
And there shall be for thee all soft delight 

That shadowy thought can win, 
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night. 

To let the warm Love in ! 



FANCY. 



EVER let the Fancy roam, 
Pleasure never is at home : 
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, 
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth ; 
Then let winged Fancy wander 
Through the thought still spread beyond \u 
Open wide the mind's cage-door, 
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. 
O sweet Fancy ! let her loose ; 
Summer's joys are spoilt by use, 
And the enjoying of the Spring 
Fades as does its blossoming : 
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too, 
Blushing through the mist and dew, 
Cloys with tasting : What do then ? 
Sit thee by the ingle, when 
The sear fagot blazes bright, 
Spirit of a winters night ; 
When the soundless earth is muffled 
And the caked snow is shuffled 
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon ; 
When the Night doth meet the Nood 
In a dark conspiracy 
To banish Even from her sky. 
Sit thee there, and send abroad, 
With a mind self-overawed, 
Fancy, high-commission 'd : — send her 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. U) 

She has vassals to attend her : 

She will bring, in spite of frost, 

Beauties that the earth hath lost ; 

She will bring thee, all together, 

All delights of summer weather ; 

All the buds and bells of May, 

From dewy sward or thorny spray ; 

All the heaped Autumn's wealth, 

With a still, mysterious stealth : 

She will mix these pleasures up 

Like three fit wines in a cup, 

And thou shalt quaff it : — thou shalt h%*u 

Distant harvest-carols clear ; 

Rustle of the reaped corn ; 

Sweet birds antheming the morn : 

And, in the same moment — hark ! 

'Tis the early April lark, 

Or the rooks, with busy caw, 

Foraging for sticks and straw. 

Thou shalt, at one glance, behold 

The daisy and the marigold ; 

White-plumed lilies, and the first 

Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst 

Shaded hyacinth, alway 

Sapphire queen of the mid-May ; 

And every leaf, and every flower 

Pearled with the self-same shower. 

Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep 

Meagre from its celled sleep ; 

And the snake all winter-thin 

Cast on sunny bank its skin ; 

Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see 

Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, 

When the hen-bird's wing doth rest 

Quiet on her mossy nest ; 

Then the hurry and alarm 

When the bee-hive casts its swarm $ 

Acorns ripe down-pattering 

While the autumn breezes sing. 



t** MISCELLANEOUS POEMB 

Oh, sweet Fancy ! let her loose 
Every thing is spoilt by use ; 
Where's the cheek that doth not fade, 
Too much gazed at ? Where's the maid 
Whose lip mature is ever new ? 
Where's the eye, however blue, 
Doth not weary ? Where's the face 
One would meet in every place ? 
Where's the voice, however soft, 
One would hear so very oft ? 
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth 
Like to bubbles when ra>i pelteth. 
Let, then, winged Fancy find 
Thee a mistress to thy mind : 
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter 
Ere the God of Torment taught he* 
How to frown and how to chide ; 
With a waist and with a side 
White as Hebe's, when her zone 
Slipt its golden clasp, and down 
Fell her kirtle to her feet, 
While she held the goblet sweet, 
And Jove grew languid. — Break the mesh 
Of the Fancy's silken leash ; 
Quickly break her prison-string, 
And such joys as these she'll bring. — 
Let the winged Fancy roam, 
Pleasure never is at home. 



ODE. 



BARDS of Passion and of Mirth, 
Ye have left your soul? i>*: earth ! 
Have ye souls in heave^ too, 
Double-lived in regions new ? 
Yes, and those of heaven commune 
With the spheres of sun and moon , 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMa. 9*3 

With the noise of fountains wondrous, 
And the parle of voices thund'rous ; 
With the whisper of heaven's trees 
And one another, in soft ease 
Seated on Elysian lawns 
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns ; 
Underneath large blue-bells tented, 
Where the daisies are rose-scented, 
And the rose herself has got 
Perfume which on earth is not ; 
Where the nightingale doth sing 
Not a senseless, tranced thing, 
But divine melodious truth ; 
Philosophic numbers smooth ; 
Tales and golden histories 
Of heaven and its mysteries. 

Thus ye live on high, and then 
On the earth ye live again ; 
And the souls ye left behind you 
Teach us, here, the way to find you, 
Where your other souls are joying, 
Never slumber'd, never cloying. 
Here, your earth-born souls still speak 
To mortals, of their little week ; 
Of their sorrows and delights ; 
Of their passions and their spites ; 
Of their glory and their shame ; 
What doth strengthen and what maim* 
Thus ye teach us, every day, 
Wisdom, though fled far away. 

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, 
Te have left your souls on earth ! 
Ye have souls in heaven too, 
Double-lived in regions new ! 



M4 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



TO AUTUMN. 

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitful ness ! 
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun ; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eavea 
run ; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core ; 

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel sheik 
With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy 
cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store ? 
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind ; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy 
hook 
Spares the next swath and all its twined 
flowers ; 
And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep 
Steady thy laden head across a brook ; 
Or by a cider-press, with patient look, 

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hour* 

Where are the songs of Spring ? Ay, where ar« 
they ? 
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 



MISCELLANEOUS i-0EM8. *** 

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
Among the river sallows, borne aloft 

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies : 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn ; 
Hedge-crickets sing ; and now with treble soft 
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 



ODE ON MELANCHOLY. 

NO, no ! go not to Lethe, neither twist 
Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonota 
wine ; 
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be biss'd 

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine ; 
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, 
Nor let "the beetle, nor the death-moth be 
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl 
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries ; 

For shade to shade will come too drowsily, 
And drown the wakeful anguish of the souL 

But when the melancholy fit shall fall 

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, 
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all. 

And hides the green hill in an April shroud ; 
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, 

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, 
Or on the wealth of globed peonies ; 
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, 

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, 
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 

She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die ; 
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips 



866 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Bidding adieu ; and aching Pleasure nigh, 

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: 
Ay, in the very temple of Delight 

Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, 

Though seen of none save him whose strenuoal 
tongue 
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine 
Hit soul shall taste the sadness of her might, 
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 



LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN 

SOULS of poets dead and gone, 
What Elysium have ye known, 
Happy field or mossy cavern, 
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ? 
Have ye tippled drink more fine 
Than mine host's Canary wine ? 
Or are fruits of Paradise 
Sweeter than those dainty pies 
Of venison ? O generous food ! 
Drest as though bold Robin Hood 
Would, with his maid Marian, 
Sup and bowse from horn and can, 

I have heard that on a day 
Mine host's sign-board flew away, 
Nobody knew whither, till 
An astrologer's old quill 
To a sheepskin gave the story, — 
Said he saw you in your glory, 
Underneath a new old-sign 
Sipping beverage divine, 
And pledging with contented smack 
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. «|f 

Souls of poets dead and gone, 
What Elysium have ye known, 
Happy field or mossy cavern, 
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ? 



ROBIN HOOD. 

TO A FRIEND. 

NO ! those days are gone away, 
And their hours are old and gray 
And their minutes buried all 
Under the down-trodden pall 
Of the leaves of many years : 
Many times have Winter's shears, 
Frozen North, and chilling East, 
Sounded tempests to the feast 
Of the forest's whispering fleeces, 
Since men knew nor rent nor leasei 

No, the bugle sounds no more, 
And the twanging bow no more ; 
Silent is the ivory shrill 
Past the heath and up the hill ; 
There is no mid-forest laugh, 
Where lone Echo gives the half 
To some wight, amazed to hear 
Jesting, deep in forest drear. 

On the fairest time of June 
You may go, with sun or moon, 
Or the seven stars to light you? 
Or the polar ray to right you; 
But you never may behold 
Little John, or Robin bold , 
Never one, of all the clan, 
Thrumming on an empty can 



268 MISCELLANEOUS POEMH. 

Same old hunting ditty, while 
He doth his green way beguile 
To fair hostess Merriment, 
Down beside the pasture Trent; 
For he left the merry tale, 
Messenger for spicy ale. 

Gone, the merry morris din ; 
Gone, the song of Gamelyn ; 
Gone, the tough-belted outlaw 
Idling in the " greene shawe;" 
All are gone away and past I 
And if Robin should be cast 
Sudden from his tufted grave, 
And if Marian should have 
Once again her forest days, 
She would weep, and he would craze ; 
He would swear, for all his oaks, 
FalPn beneath the dock-yard strokes, 
Have rotted on the briny seas ; 
She would weep that her wild bees 
Sang not to her — strange ! that hone^ 
Can't be got without hard money 1 

So it is ; yet let us sing 
Honour to the old bow-string ! 
Honour to the bugle horn I 
Honour to the woods unshorn ! 
Honour to the Lincoln green ! 
Honour to the archer keen ! 
Honour to tight Little John, 
And the horse he rude upon ! 
Honour to bold Robin Hood, 
Sleeping in the underwood ! 
Honour to Maid Marian, 
And to all the Sherwood clan I 
Though their days have hurried by, 
y Jbt us two a burden try. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 9*1 



SLEEP AND POETRY. 

Aa_.I lay In my bed tilepe fall unmete 

Was onto me, but why that I ne might 

Rest I ne wist, for there n' as erthly wight 

(As I suppose) had more of hertis ese 

Than I, for I n' ad sicknesse nor disese. — Chaucm. 

WHAT is mere gentle than a wind in summer ? 
What is more soothing than the pretty hum- 
mer 
That stays one moment in an open flower, 
And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower ? 
What is more tranquil than a musk-rose blowing 
In a green island, far from all men's knowing ? 
More healthful than the leafiness of dales ? 
More secret than a nest of nightingales ? 
More serene than Cordelia's countenance ? 
More full of visions than a high romance ? 
What, but thee, Sleep ? Soft closer of our eyes ! 
Low murmurer of tender lullabies ! 
Light hoverer around our happy pillows ! 
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows ! 
Silent entangler of a beauty's tresses I 
Most happy listener 1 when the morning blesses 
Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes 
Tha' glance so brightly at the new sun-rise. 

But what is higher beyond thought than thee? 
Fresher than berries of a mountain-tree ? 
More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, mow 

regal, 
Than wings of swans, than doves, than dim-tee* 

eagle ? t 

What is it? And to what shall I compare k * 
It b&s a glory, and nought else can share it : 



$70 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The thought thereof is awful, sweet, and holy, 
Chasing away all worldliness and folly : 
Coming sometimes like fearful claps of thunder ; 
Or the low rumblings earth's regions under ; 
And sometimes like a gentle whispering 
Of all the secrets of some wondrous thing 
That breathes about us in the vacant air ; 
So that we look around with prying stare, 
Perhaps to see shapes of light, aerial limning ; 
And catch soft floatings from a faint-heard hymn 

in g; 

To see the laurel-wreath, on high suspended, 
That is to crown our name when life is ended. 
Sometim°s it gives a glory to the voice, 
And from the heart up-springs, rejoice \ rejoice ! 
Sounds which will reach the Framer of all thing*, 
And die away in ardent mutterings. 

No one who once the glorious sun has seen, 
And all the clouds, and felt his bosom clean 
For his great Maker's presence, but must know 
What 'tis I mean, and feel his being glow : 
Therefore no insult will I give his spirit, 
By telling what he sees from native merit 

O Poesy ! for thee I hold my pen, 
That am not yet a glorious denizen 
Of thy wide heaven — should I rather kneel 
Upon some mountain-top until I feel 
A glowing splendour round about me hung, 
And echo back the voice of thine own tongue ? 
O Poesy ! for thee I grasp my pen, 
That am not yet a glorious denizen 
Of thy wide heaven ; }"et, to my ardent prayer, 
Yield from thy sanctuary some clear air, 
Smooths for intoxication by the breath 
Of flowering bays, that I may die a death 
Of luxury, and my young spirit follow 



MISCELLANEOUS POEM& 971 

The morning sunbeams to the great Apollo, 

Like a fresh sacrifice ; or, if I can bear 

The o'erwhelming sweets, 'twill bring me to thp. fail 

Visions of all places : a bowery nook 

Will be elysium — an eternal book 

Whence I may copy many a lovely saying 

About the leaves, and flowers — about the playing 

Of nymphs in woods, and fountains ; and the shade 

Keeping a silence round a sleeping maid ; 

And many a verse from so strange influence 

That we must ever wonder how, and whence 

It came. Also imaginings will hover 

Round my fire-side, and haply there discover 

Vistas of solemn beauty, where I'd wander 

In happy silence, like the clear Meander 

Through its lone vales ; and where I found a spot 

Of awfuller shade, or an enchanted grot, 

Or a green hill o'erspread with chequer'd dress 

Of flowers, and fearful from its loveliness, 

Write on my tablets all that was permitted, 

All that was for our human senses fitted. 

Then the events of this wide world I'd seize 

Like a strong giant, and my spirit tease 

Till at its shoulders it should proudly see 

Wings to find out an immortality. 

Stop and consider 1 life is but a day ; 
A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way 
From a tree's summit ; a poor Indian's sleep 
While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep 
Of Montmorenei. Why so sad a moan ? 
Life is the rose's hope while yet unblown ; 
The reading of an ever-changing tale ; 
The light uplifting of a maiden's veil ; 
A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air; 
A laughing school-boy, without grief or care, 
Riding the springy branches of an elm- 



272 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm 
Myself in poesy ! so I may do the deed 
That my own soul has to itself decreed. 
Then I will pass the countries that I see 
In long perspective, and continually 
Taste their pure fountains. First the realm 111 pa* 
Of Flora, and Old Pan : sleep in the grass, 
Feed upon apples red, and strawberries, 
And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees, 
Catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places, 
To woo sweet kisses from averted faces — 
Play with their fingers, touch their shoulders white 
Into a pretty shrinking with a bite 
As hard as lips can make it : till agreed, 
A lovely tale of human life we'll read. 
And one will teach a tame dove how it best 
May fan the cool air gently o'er my rest : 
Another, bending o'er her nimble tread, 
Will set a green robe floating round her head, 
And still will dance with ever-varied ease, 
Smiling upon the flowers and the trees : 
Another will entice me on, and on, 
Through almond blossoms and rich cinnamon ; 
Till in the bosom of a leafy world 
We rest in silence, like two gems upcurl'd 
In the recesses of a pearly shell. 

And can I ever bid these joys farewell ? 
Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, 
Where I may find the agonies, the strife 
Of human hearts : for lo ! I see afar, 
O'er-sailing the blue cragginess, a car 
And steeds with streamy manes — the charioteer 
Looks out upon the winds with glurious fear : 
And now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly 
Along a huge cloud's ridge ; and now with sprightlj 
Wheel downward come they into fresher skies, 
Tipt round with silver from the sun's bright eye*. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 271 

Btili downward with rapacious whirl they glide; 

And now I see them on a green hill side 

In breezy rest among the nodding stalks. 

The charioteer with wondrous gesture talks 

To the trees and mountains ; and there soon appeal 

Shapes of delight, of mystery, and fear, 

Passing along before a dusky space 

Made by some mighty oaks : as they would chase 

Some ever-fleeting music, on they sweep. 

Lo ! how they murmur, laugh, and smile, and weep . 

Some with upholden hand and mouth severe ; 

Some with their faces muffled to the ear 

Between their arms ; some clear in youthful blooii^ 

Go glad and smilingly athwart the gloom ; 

Some looking back, and some with upward gaze ; 

Yes, thousands in a thousand different ways 

Flit onward — now a lovely wreath of girls 

Dancing their sleek hair into tangled curls ; 

And now broad wings. Most awfully intent 

The driver of those steeds is forward bent, 

And seems to listen : O that I might know 

All that he writes with such a hurrying glow ! 

The visions all are fled — the car is fled 
Into the light of heaven, and in their stead 
A sense of real things comes doubly strong, 
And, lik^ a muddy stream, would bear along 
My soui to nothingness : but I will strive 
Against all doubtings, and will keep alive 
The thought of that same chariot, and the strange 
Journey it went. 

Is there so small a range 
In the present strength of manhood, that the high 
Imagination cannot freely fly 
As she was wont of old ? prepare her steeds, 
Paw up against the light, and do strange deeds 
Upon the clouds ? Has she not shown us all ? 
IB 



$74 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

From the clear space of ether, to the small 

Breath of new buds unfolding ? From the meaning 

Of Jove's large eyebrow, to the tender greening 

Of April meadows ? here her altar shone, 

E'en in this isle ; and who could paragon 

The fervid choir that lifted up a noise 

Of harmony, to where it aye will poise 

Its mighty self of convoluting sound, 

Huge as a planet, and like that roll round, 

Eternally around a dizzy void ? 

Ay, in those days the Muses were nigh cloy'd 

With honours ; nor had any other care 

Than to sing out and soothe their wavy hair. 

Could all this be forgotten ? Yes, a schism 
Nurtured by foppery and barbarism, 
Made great Apollo blush for this his land. 
Men were thought wise who could not understand 
His glories : with a puling infant's force 
They sway'd about upon a rocking-horse, 
And thought it Pegasus. Ah, dismal-soul'd ! 
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'd 
Its gathering waves — ye felt it not. The blue 
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew 
Of summer night collected still to make 
The morning precious : Beauty was awake 1 
Why were ye not awake ? But ye were dead 
To things ye knew not of, — were closely wed 
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule 
And compass vile : so that ye taught a school 
Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit, 
Till^ like the certain wands of Jacob's wit, 
Their verses tallied. Easy was the task : 
A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask 
Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race ! 
That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his faca, 
And did not know it, — no, they went about, 
Holding a poor, decrepit standard out, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. ill 

Mark'd with most flimsy mottoes, and in large 
The name of one Boileau ! 

O ye whose charge 
It is to hover round our pleasant hills ! 
Whose congregated majesty so fLls 
My boundly reverence, that I cannot trace 
Your hallow'd names, in this unholy place, 
80 near those common folk ; did not their shamei 
Affright you ? Did our old lamenting Thames 
Delight you ? Did ye never cluster round 
Delicious Avon, with a mournful sound, 
And weep ? Or did ye wholly bid adieu 
To regions where no more the laurel grew ? 
Or did ye stay to give a welcoming 
To some lone spirits who could proudly sing 
Their youth away, and die ? 'Twas even so : 
But let me think away those times of woe : 
Now 'tis a fairer season ; ye have breathed 
Rich benedictions o'er us ; ye have wreathed 
Fresh garlands : for sweet music has been heard 
In many places; some has been upstirr'd 
From out its crystal dwelling in a lake, 
By a swan's ebon bill ; from a thick brake, 
Nested and quiet in a valley mild, 
Bubbles a pipe ; fine sounds are floating wild | 

About the earth : happy are ye and glad. c 

These things are, doubtless : yet in truth we've haf j 
Strange thunders from the potency of song ; 1 

Mingled indeed with what is sweet and strong, « 

From majesty : but in clear trith the themes 
Are ugly cubs, the Poet's Polyphemes 
Disturbing the grand sea. A drainless shower 
Of light is poesy ; 'tis the supreme of power ; 
Tie might half slumbering on its own right arm 
The very archings of her eyelids charm 
A thousand willing agents to obey, 
And still she governs with the mildest sway : 



276 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

But strength alone though of the Muses born 

Is like a fallen angel : trees uptorn, 

Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchre! 

Delight it ; for it feeds upon the burrs 

And thorns of life ; forgetting the great end 

Of poesy, that it should be a friend 

To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man. 

Yet I rejoice : a myrtle fairer than 
E'er grew in Paphos, from the bitter weeds 
Lifts its sweet heap into the air, and feeds 
A silent space with ever-sprouting green. 
All tenderest birds there find a pleasant screen, 
Creep through the shade with jaunty fluttering, 
Nibble the little cupped flowers and sing. 
Then let us clear away the choking thorns 
From round its gentle stem ; let the young fawnb 
Yeaned in after-times, when we are flown, 
Find a fresh sward beneath it, overgrown 
With simple flowers : let there nothing be 
More boisterous than a lover's bended knee , 
Nought more ungentle than the placid look 
Of one who leans upon a closed book ; 
Nought more untranquil than the grassy slopes 
Between two hills. All hail, delightful hopes ! 
As she was wont, th' imagination 
Into most lovely labyrinths will be gone, 
And they shall be accounted poet kings 
Who simply tell the most heart-easing things. 
O may these joys be ripe before I die ! 

Will not some say that I presumptuously 
Have spoken V that from hastening disgrace 
Twere better far to hide my foolish face ? 
That whining boyhood should with reverence bow 
Ere the dread thunderbolt could reach me ? How 
If I do hide myself, it sure shall be 
Jn the very fane, the light of Poesy : 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. JM 

If I do fall, at least I will be laid 

Beneath the silence of a poplar shade ; 

And over rae the grass shall be smooth shaven , 

And there shall be a kind memorial graven. 

But off, Despondence ! miserable bane ! 

They should not know thee, who athirst to gain 

A noble end, are thirsty every hour. 

What though I am not wealthy in the dower 

Of spanning wisdom ; though I do not know 

The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow 

Hither and thither all the changing thoughts 

Of man : though no great ministering reason 

sorts 
Out the dark mysteries of human souls 
To clear conceiving : yet there ever rolls 
A vast idea before me, and I glean 
Therefrom my liberty : thence too IVe seen 
The end and aim of Poesy. 'Tis clear 
As anything most true ; as that the year 
Is made of the four seasons — manifest 
As a large cross, some old cathedral's crest, 
Lifted to the white clouds. Therefore should I 
Be but the essence of deformity, 
A coward, did my very eyelids wink 
At speaking out what I have dared to tbink. 
Ah 1 rather let me like a madman run 
Over some precipice ; let the hot sun 
Melt my Dedalian wings, and drive me down 
Convulsed and headlong ? Stay ! an inward 

frown 
Of conscience bids me be more calm awhile. 
An ocean dim, sprinkled with many an isle, 
Spreads awfully before me. How much toil 
How many days ! what desperate turmoil ! 
Ere I can have explored its widenesses. 
Ah, what a task ! upon my bended knees, 
I could unsay those — no, impossible ! 
Impossible ! 



*78 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 

For sweet relief I'll dwell 
On humbler thoughts, and let this strange assay 
tegun in gentleness die so away. 
£'en now all tumult from my bosom fades : 
I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids 
That smooth the path of honour ; brotherhood, 
And friendliness, the nurse of mutual good. 
The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet 
Into the brain ere one can think upon it ; 
The silence when some rhymes are coming out ; 
And when they're come, the very pleasant rout : 
The message certain to be done to-morrow. 
'Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow 
Some precious book from out its snug retreat, 
To cluster round it when we next shall meet 
Scarce can I scribble on ; for lovely airs 
Are fluttering round the room like doves in pain 
Many delights of that glad day recalling, 
When first my senses caught their tender falling 
And with these airs come forms of elegance 
Stooping their shoulders o'er a horse's prance, 
Careless, and grand — fingers soft and round 
Parting luxuriant curls ; and the swift bound 
Of Bacchus from his chariot, when his eye 
Made Ariadne's cheek look blushingly. 
Thus 1 remember all the pleasant flow 
Of words at opening a portfolio. 

Things such as these are ever harbingers 
To trains of peaceful images : the stirs 
Of a swan's neck unseen among the rushes. 
A linnet starting all about the bushes : 
A butterfly, with golden wings broad-parted, 
Nestling a rose, convulsed as though it smarted 
With over-pleasure — many, many more, 
Might I indulge at large in all my store 
Of luxuries : yet I must not forget 
Sleep, quiet with his poppy coronet : 



MIS CELL ANEOJS POEMS. 271 

For what there may be worthy in these rhymes 

I partly owe to him : and thus, the chimes 

Of friendly voices had just given place 

To as sweet a silence, when I 'gan retrace 

The pleasant day, upon a couch at ease. 

It was a poet's house who keeps the keys 

Of pleasure's temple — round about were hung 

The glorious features of the bards who sung 

In other ages — cold and sacred busts 

Smiled at each other. Happy he who trusts 

To clear Futurity his darling fame ! 

Then there were fauns and satyrs taking aim 

At swelling apples with a frisky heap 

And reaching fingers, 'mid a luscious heap 

Of vine-leaves. Then there rose to view a fane 

Of liney marble, and thereto a train 

Of nymphs approaching fairly o'er the sward : 

One, loveliest, holding her white hand toward 

The dazzling sun-rise : two sisters sweet 

Bending their graceful figures till they meet 

Over the trippings of a little child : 

And some are hearing, eagerly, the wild 

Thrilling liquidity of dewy piping. 

See, in another picture, nymphs are wiping 

Cherishingly Diana's timorous limbs ; 

A fold of lawny mantle dabbling swims 

At the bath's edge, and keeps a gentle motion 

With the subsiding crystal : as when ocean 

Heaves calmly its broad swelling smoothness o'er 

Its rocky marge, and balances once more 

The patient weeds ; that now unshent by foam 

Feel all about their undulating home. 

Sappho's meek head was there half smiling down 

At nothing ; just as though the earnest frown 

Of over-thinking had that moment gone 

From off her brow, and left her all alone 

Great Alfred's too, with anxious, pitying ejes, 
Aj if he always listen' d to the sighs 



180 MISCELLANEOUS P0EM8. 

Of the goaded world ; and Kosciusko's, worn 
By horrid suffrance — mightily forlorn. 

Petrarch, outstepping from the shady green, 
Starts at the sight of Laura ; nor can wean 
His eyes from her sweet face. Most happy they ! 
For over them was seen a free display 
Of outspread wings, and from between them shone 
The face of Poesy : from off her throne 
She overlooked things that I scarce could tell, 
The very sense of where I was might well 
Keep sleep aloof: but more than that there came 
Thought after thought to nourish up the flame 
Within my breast ; so that the morning light 
Surprised me even from a sleepless night ; 
And up I rose refreshed, and glad, and gay, 
Resolving to begin that very day 
These lines ; and howsoever they be done, 
I leave them as a father does his son. 



STANZAS. 

rr a drear-nighted December, 
Too happy, happy tree, 
Thy branches ne'er remember 
Their green felicity : 
The north cannot undo them, 
With a sleety whistle through them ; 
Nor frozen thawings glue them 
From budding at the prime. 

In a drear-nighted December, 
Too happy, happy brook, 
Thy bubblings ne'er remember 
Apollo's summer look ; 
But with a sweet forgetting, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

They stay their crystal fretting, 
Never, never petting 
About the frozen time. 

Ah ! would 'twere so with many 
A gentle girl and boy I 
But were there ever any 
Writhed not at passed joy ? 
To know the change and feel it, 
When there is none to heal it, 
Nor numbed sense to steal it, 
Was never said in rhyme. 



28} 





EPISTLES. 



Among the rest a shepherd (though but young 
Yet hartned to his pipe) with all the skill 
His few yeerea could, began to fill his quill. 

Britannia?* Pastorals. — Bro^ki 




op 



EPISTLES. 



TO GEORGE FELTON MATHEW. 

SWEET are the pleasures that to verse belong, 
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song ; 
Nor can remembrance, Mathew ! bring to view 
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true 
Than that in which the brother poets joy'd, 
Who, with combined powers, their wit employ'd 
To raise a trophy to the drama's muses. 
The thought of this great partnership diffuses 
Over the genius-loving heart, a feeling 
Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing 
Too partial friend ! fain would I follow thee 
Past each horizon of fine poesy ; 
Fain would I echo back each pleasant note 
As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float 
'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted, 
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted 
But 'tis impossible ; far different cares 
Beckon me sternly from soft " Lydian airs," 
And hold my faculties so long in thrall, 
That I am oft in doubt whether at all 
1 shall again see Phoebus in the morning : 
Or flush'd Aurora in the roseate dawning ! 
Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream ; 
Or a wrapt seraph in a moonlight beam ; 
Or again witness what with thee I've seen, 
The dew by fairy feet swept from the green. 
After a night of some quaint jubilee 
Which every elf and fay had come to 



286 EPISTLES. 

When bright processions took their airy march 
Beneath the curved moon's triumphal arch. 

But might I now each passing moment give 
To the coy Muse, with me she would not live 
In this dark city, nor would condescend 
'Mid contradictions her delights to lend. 
Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me bf kind, 
Ah 1 surely it must be whene'er I find 
Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic, 
That often must have seen a poet frantic ; 
Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing 
And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing ; 
W 7 here the dark-leaved laburnum's drooping cluster! 
Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres, 
And intertwined the cassia's arms unite. 
With its own drooping buds, but very white. 
Where on one side are covert branches hung, 
'Mong which the nightingales have always sung 
In leafy quiet ; where to pry, aloof 
Atween the pillars of the sylvan roof, 
Would be to find where violet beds were nestling, 
And where the bee with cowslip bells was wrestling 
There must be too a ruin dark and gloomy, 
To say " Joy not too much in all that's bloomy." 

Yet this is vain — O Mathew ! lend thy aid 
To find a place where I may greet the maid — 
Where we may soft humanity put on, 
And sit, and rhyme, and think on Chatterton ; 
And that warm-hearted Shakspeare sent to me& 

him 
Four laurell'd spiiits, heavenward to entreat him. 
With reverence would we speak of all the sages 
Who have left streaks of light athwart their ages . 
And thou shouldst moralize on Milton's blindness, 
And mourn the fearful dearth of human kindness 
To those who strove with the bright golden wing 



EPISTLES. 287 

Of geniua, to flap away each sting 
Thrown by the pitiless world. We next could te 
Of those who in the cause of freedom fell ; 
Of our own Alfred, of Helvetian Tell ; 
Of him whose name to every heart 's a solace, 
High-minded and unbending William Wallace. 
While to the rugged north our musing turns, 
We well might drop a tear for him and Burns. 
Felton ! without incitements such as these, 
How vain for me the niggard Muse to tease ! 
For thee, she will thy every dwelling grace, 
And make " a sunshine in a shady place : " 
For thou wast once a flow'ret blooming wild, 
Close to the source, bright, pure, and un defiled, 
Whence gush the streams of song : in happy hoia 
Came chaste Diana from her shady bower, 
Just as the sun was from the east uprising ; 
And, as for him some gift she was devising, 
Beheld thee, pluck'd thee, cast thee in the streaa 
To meet her glorious brother's greeting beam. 
I marvel much that thou hast never told 
How, from a flower, into a fish of gold 
Apollo changed thee : how thou next didst seem 
A black-eyed swan upon the widening stream ; 
And when thou first didst in that mirror trace 
The placid features of a human face ; 
That thou hast never told thy travels strange. 
And all the wonders of the mazy range 
O'er pebbly crystal, and o'er golden sands : 
Kissing thy daily food from Naiads' pearly hands 

November, 1815. 



F 



TO MY BROTHER GEORGE. 

ULL many a dreary hour have I past, 
My brain bewilder'd, and my mind o'ercast 
With heaviness ; in seasons when I've though* 



2S8 EPISTLES. 

No sphery strains by me could e'er be caught 
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze 
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays ; 
Or, on the wavy grass outstretch'd supinely, 
Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely : 
That I should never hear Apollo's song, 
Though feathery clouds were floating all along 
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between 
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen : 
That the still murmur of the honey-bee 
Would never teach a rural song to me : 
That the bright glance from beauty's eyelids slanting 
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting, 
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold 
Some tale of love and arms in time of old. 

But there are times, when those that love the bay 
Fly from all sorrowing far, far away ; 
A sudden glow comes on them, nought they see 
In water, earth, or air, but poesy. 
It has been said, dear George, and true I hold it, 
(For knightly Spenser to Libertas told it,) 
That when a Poet is in such a trance, 
In air he sees white coursers paw and prance, 
Bestridden of gay knights, in gay apparel, 
Who at each other tilt in playful quarrel ; 
And what we, ignorantly, sheet-lightning call, 
Is the swift opening of their wide portal, 
When the bright warder blows his trumpet clear, 
Whose tones reach nought on earth but poet's eai 
When these enchanted portals open wide, 
And through the light the horsemen swiftly glide, 
The Poet's eye can reach those golden halls, 
And view the glory of their festivals : 
Theh? ladies fair, that in the distance seem 
Fit for the silvering of a seraph's dream ; 
Their rich brimm'd goblets, that incessant run, 
Like the bright spots that move about the sun ; 



EPISTLES. 28f 

And when upheld, the wine from each bright jar 
Pours with the lustre of a falling star. 
Yet further off are dimly seen their bowers, 
Of which no mortal eye can reach the flowers ; 
And 'tis right just, for well Apollo knows 
'Twould make the Poet quarrel with the rose. 
All that's reveal'd from that far seat of blisses, 
Is, the clear fountains' interchanging kisses, 
As gracefully descending, light and thin, 
Like silver streaks across a dolphin's fin, 
When he upswimmeth from the coral caves, 
And sports with half his tail above the waves. 

These wonders strange he sees, and many more, 
Whose head is pregnant with poetic lore : 
Should he upon an evening ramble fare 
With forehead to the soothing breezes bare, 
Would he nought see but the dark, silent blue, 
With all its diamonds trembling through and 

through ? 
Or the coy moon, when in the waviness 
Of whitest clouds she does her beauty dress, 
And staidly paces higher up, and higher, 
Like a sweet nun in holiday attire ? 
Ah, yes ! much more would start into his sight — 
The revelries and mysteries of night : 
And should I ever see them, I will tell you 
Such tales as needs must with amazement spell you. 

These are the living pleasures of the bard : 
But richer far posterity's award. 
What does he murmur with his latest breath, 
While his proud eye looks through the film of 

death ? 
*' What though I leave this dull and earthly mould 
Yet shall my spirit lofty converse hold 
With after times. — The patriot shall feel 
My stern alarum, and unsheath his steel j 
19 



SfO EPISTLES. 

Or in the senate thunder out my numbers, 

To startle princes from their easy slumbers. 

The sage will mingle with each moral theme 

My happy thoughts sententious : he will teem 

With lofty periods when my verses fire him, 

And then I'll stoop from heaven to inspire him 

Lays have I left of such a dear delight 

That maids will sing: them on their bridal-night. 

Gay villagers, upon a morn of May, 

When they have tired their gentle limbs with pi* 

And form'd a snowy circle on the grass, 

And placed in midst of all that lovely lass 

Who chosen is their queen, — with her fine head 

Crowned with flowers purple, white, and red : 

For there the lily and the musk-rose sighing, 

Are emblems true of hapless lovers dying : 

Between her breasts, that never yet felt trouble, 

A bunch of violets full blown, and double, 

Serenely sleep : — she from a casket takes 

A little book, — and then a joy awakes 

About each youthful heart, — with stifled cries, 

And rubbing of white hands, and sparkling eyet 

For she's to read a tale of hopes and fears ; 

One that I foster'd in my youthful years : 

The pearls, that on each glistening circlet sleep, 

Gush ever and anon with silent creep, 

Lured by the innocent dimples. To sweet rest 

Shall the dear babe, upon its mother's breast, 

Be lulPd with songs of mine. Fair world adieu I 

Thy dales and hills are fading from my view • 

Swiftly I mount, upon wide-spreading pinions, 

Far from the narrow bounds of thy dominions. 

Full joy I feel, while thus I cleave the air, 

That my soft verse will charm thy daughters fair, 

And warm thy sons I " Ah, my dear friend and 

brother, 
Could I, at once, my mad ambition smother, 
For tasting joys like these, sure I should be 



EPISTLES. «91 

Happier, and dearer to society. 

At times, 'tis true, I've felt relief from pain 

When some bright thought has darted through mj 

brain : 
Through all that day I've felt a greater pleasure 
Than if I had brought to light a hidden treasure. 
As to my sonnets, though none else should heed 

them, 
I feel delighted, still, that you should read them. 
Of late, too, I have had much calm enjoyment, 
Stretch'd on the grass at my best loved employ 

ment 
Of scribbling lines for you. These things I thought 
While, in my face, the freshest breeze I caught. 
E'en now I am pillow'd on a bed of flowers 
That crowns a lofty cliff, which proudly towers 
Above the ocean waves. The stalks and blades 
Chequer my tablet with their quivering shades. 
On one side is a field of drooping oats, 
Through which the poppies show their scarlet coats, 
So pert and useless, that they bring to mind 
The scarlet coats that pester human-kind. 
And on the other side, outspread, is seen 
Ocean's blue mantle, streak'd with purple and 

green ; 
Now 'tis I see a canvas'd ship, and now 
Mark the bright silver curling round her prow. 
I see the lark down-dropping to his nest, 
And the broad-wing' d sea-gull never at rest ; 
For when no more he spreads his feathers free, 
His breast is dancing on the restless sea. 
Now I direct my eyes into the west, 
Which at this moment is in sun-beams drest . 
Why westward turn ? 'Twas but to say adieu ! 
Twas but to kiss my hand, dear George, to you 

August, 1816. 



99* EPISTLEB. 



TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. 

OFT have you seen a swan superbly frowning, 
And with proud breast his own white shadow 
crowning ; 
He slants his neck beneath the waters bright 
So silently, it seems a beam of light 
Come from the galaxy : anon he sports, — 
With outspread wings the Naiad Zephyr courts, 
Or ruffles all the surface of the lake 
In striving from its crystal face to take 
Some diamond water-drops, and them to treasurf 
In milky nest, and sip them off at leisure. 
But not a moment can he there ensure them, 
Nor to such downy rest can he allure them ; 
For down they rush as though they would be free 
And drop like hours into eternity. 
Just like that bird am I in loss of time, 
Whene'er I venture on the stream of rhyme ; 
With shatter'd boat, oar snapt, and canvas rent, 
I slowly sail, scarce knowing my intent ; 
Still scooping up the water with my fingers, 
In whioh a trembling diamond never lingers. 

By this, friend Charles, you may full plainly se* 
Why I have never penn'd a line to thee : 
Because my thoughts were never free and clear, 
And little fit to please a classic ear ; 
Because my wine was of too poor a savour 
For one whose palate gladdens in the flavour 
Of sparkling Helicon : — small good it were 
To take him to a desert rude and bare, 
Who had on Baise's shore reclined at ease, 
While Tasso's page was floating in a breeze 
That gave soft music from Armida's bowers, 
Mingled with fragrance from her rarest flowers t 



hTl&TLEB. %$$ 

Small good to one who had by Mulla's stream 

Fondled the maidens with the breasts of cream ; 

Who had beheld Belphoebe in a brook, 

And lovely Una in a leafy nook, 

And Arehimago leaning o'er his book : 

Who had of all that's sweet tasted, and seen, 

From silvery ripple, up to beauty's queen ; 

From the sequester'd haunts of gay Titania, 

To the blue dwelling of divine Urania : 

One, who of late had ta'en sweet forest walks 

With him who elegantly chats and talks — 

The wrong'd Libertas — who has told you stories 

Of laurel chaplets, and Apollo's glories ; 

Of troops chivalrous prancing through a city, 

And tearful ladies, made for love and pity : 

With many else which I have never known. 

Thus have I thought ; and days on days have flown 

Slowly, or rapidly — unwilling still 

For you to try my dull, unlearned quill. 

Nor should I now, but that I've known you long ; 

That you first taught me all the sweets of song : 

The grand, the sweet, the terse, the free, the fine ; 

What swell'd with pathos, and what right divioe : 

Spenserian vowels that elope with ease, 

And float along like birds o'er summer seas . 

Miltonian storms, and more, Miltonian tenderness : 

Michael in arms, and more, meek Eve's fair sieiv 

derness. 
Who read for me the sonnet swelling loudly 
Up to its climax, and then dying proudly ? 
Who found for me the grandeur of the ode, 
Growing, like Atlas, stronger from its load ? 
Who let me taste that more than cordial dram, 
The sharp, the rapier-pointed epigram ? 
Show'd me that epic was of ail the king, 
Round, vast, and spanning all. like Saturn's ring * 
You too upheld the veil from Clio's beauty, 
And pointed out the patriot's stern duty ; 



•94 EPI8TLE8. 

The might of Alfred, and the shaft of Tell ; 

The hand of Brutus, that so grandly fell 

Upon a tyrant's head. Ah ! had I ne^er seen, 

Or known your kindness, what might 7 have beet 

What my enjoyments in my youthful yeajs, 

Bereft of all that now my life endears ? 

And can I e'er these benefits forget ? 

And can I e'er repay the friendly debt ? 

No, doubly no; — yet should these ^hymings 

please, 
I shall roll on the grass with twofold ease \ 
For I have long time been my fancy feeding 
With hopes that you would one day thinx the 

reading 
Of my rough verses not an hour misspent ; 
Should it e'er be so, what a rich content! 
Some weeks have pass'd since last I saw the <$>irof 
In lucent Thames reflected : — warm desires 
To see the sun o'er-peep the eastern dimness, 
And morning-shadows streaking into slimness 
Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water ; 
To mark the time as they grow broad and short** 
To feel the air that plays about the hills, 
And sips its freshness from the little rills ; 
To see high, golden corn wave in the light 
When Cynthia smiles upon a summer's night, 
And peers among the cloudlets, jet and white, 
As though she were reclining i n a bed 
Of bean-blossoms, in heaven freshly shed. 
No sooner had I stepp'd into these pleasures, 
Than I began to think of rhymes and measures r 
The air that floated by me seem'd to say 
" Write ! thou wilt never have a better day." 
And so I did. When many lines I'd written, 
Though with their grace I was not oversmitten, 
Yet, as my hand was warm, I thought I'd bette* 
Trust to my feelings, and write you a letter. 
Such an attempt required an inspiration 



EPISTLES. m 

Of a peculiar &Drt, — a consummation ; — 
Which, had I felt, these scribblings might haYt 

been 
Verses from which the soul would never ween ; 
But many days have past since last my heart 
Was warm'd luxuriously by divine Mozart ; 
By Arne delighted, or by Handel madden'd ; 
Or by the song of Erin pierced and sadden'd : 
What time you were before the music sitting, 
And the rich notes to each sensation fitting. 
Since I have walk'd with you through shady lanes 
That freshly terminate in open plains, 
And revelFd in a chat that ceased not, 
When, at night-fall, among your books we got : 
No, nor when supper came, nor after that, — 
Nor when reluctantly I took my hat ; 
No, nor till cordially you shook my hand 
Mid- way between our homes: — your accents 

bland 
Still sounded in my ears, when I no more 
Could hear your footsteps touch the gravelly floor. 
Sometimes I lost them, and then found again ; 
You changed the foot-path for the grassy plain. 
In those still moments I have wish'd you joys 
That well you know to honour : — " Life's very toys 
With him," said I, " will take a pleasant charm ; 
It cannot be that aught will work him harm." 
These thoughts now come o'er me with all their 

might : — 
Again I shake your hand, — friend Charles, good 

night 

,181* 




SONNETS- 



r. 



TC A FRIEND WHO SENT ME SOME R08J68. 



AS late I rambled in the happy fields, 
What time the skylark shakes the tremuloui 
dew 
From his lush clover covert ; — when anew 
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields ; 
[ saw tLe sweetest flower wild nature yields, 
A fresh-blown musk-rose ; 'twas the first that 

threw 
Its sweets upon the summer : graceful it grew 
As is the wand that queen Titania wields. 
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy, 

I thought the garden-rose it far excelFd ; 
But when, O Wells ! thy roses came to me, 

My sense with their deliciousncss was spell'd 
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea 

WhisperM of peace, and truth, and friendliness 
unquelFd. 



100 80NNET8 

II. 

TO MY BROTHER GEORGE. 

MANY the wonders I this day have seen : 
The sun, when first he kist away the tears 
That fill'd the eyes of Morn ; — the laurell'd 
peers 
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean ; — 
The Ocean with its vastness, its blue green, 

Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, — - 
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears 
Must think, on what will be, and what has been. 
E'en now, dear George, while this for you I write, 

Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping 
So scantly, that it seems her bridal night, 

And she her half-diseover'd revels keeping. 
But what, without the social thought of thee, 
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea ? 

in. 

TO . 



HAD I a man's fair form, then might my sighs 
Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell 
Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart ; so well 
Would passion arm me for the enterprise : 
But ah ! I am no knight whose foeman dies ; 
No cuirass glistens on my bosom's swell; 
I am no happy shepherd of the dell 
Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes. 
Yet must I doat upon thee, — call thee sweet. 
Sweeter by far than Hybla's honey'd roses 
When steep'd in dew rich to intoxication. 
Ah 1 I will taste that dew, for me 'tis meet, 
And when the moon her pallid face discloses, 
I'll gather some bv spells, and incantation. 



SONNETS 801 



IV. 



SOLITUDE ! if I must with thee dwell, 
Let it not be among the jumbled heap 
Of murky buildings : climb with me the 
steep, — 
Nature's observatory — whence the dell. 
In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, 
May seem a span ; let me thy vigils keep 
'Mongst boughs pavilion'd, where the deer*! 
swift leap 
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell. 

But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with 
thee, 
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, 
Whose words are images of thoughts refined, 
Is my soul's pleasure ; and it sure must be 
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, 

When to thv haunts two kindred spirits flee. 



HOW many bards gild the lapses of time ! 
A few of them have ever been the food 
Of my delighted fancy, — I could brood 
Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime : 
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme, 

These will in thrones before my mind intrude : 
But no confusion, no disturbance rude 
Do they occasion ; 'tis a pleasing chime. 

So the unnumber'd sounds that evening store ; 
The songs of birds — the whispering of the leaves ■ 
The voice of waters — the great bell that heaves 
With solemn sound, — and thousand others 
more, 
That distance of recognizance bereaves, 
Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar. 



$e<2 80NNETS. 

▼L 
TO G. A. W. 

NYMPH of the downward smile and sidelong 
glance ! 
In what diviner moments of the day 

Art thou most lovely ? when gone far astray 
Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance ? 
Or when serenelv wandering in a trance 

Of sober thought ? Or when starting away, 

With careless r v obe to meet the morning ray, 
Thou sparest the flowers in thy mazy dance ? 
Haply 'tis when thy ruby lips part sweetly, 

And so remain, because thou listenest : 
But thou to please wert nurtured so completely 

That I can never tell what mood is best, 
I shall as soon pronounce which Grace more neatly 

Trips it before Apollo than the rest. 

VII. 

WRITTEN ON THE DAY THAT MR. LEIGH HUNT 
LEFT PRISON. 

WHAT though, for showing truth to flattered 
state, 
Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, 

In his immortal spirit, been as free 
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. 
Minion of grandeur ! think you he did wait? 

Think you he nought but prison-walls did see, 

Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key ? 
Ah, no ! far happier, nobler was his fate ! 
In Spenser's halls he stray'd, and bowers fair, 

Culling enchanted flowers ; and he flew 
With daring Milton through the fields of air : 

To regions of his own his genius true 
Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair 

When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew ? 



8 ON NETS. 80S 

VIII. 

TO MY BROTHER. 

SMALL, busy flames play through the fresh-laid 
coals, 

And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep 

Like whispers of the household gods that keep 
A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls. 
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles, 

Your eyes are fix'd, as in poetic sleep, 

Upon the lore so voluble and deep, 
That aye at fall of night our care condoles. 
This isyour birth-day, Tom, and I rejoice 

That thus it passes smoothly, quietly : 
Many such eves of gently whispering noise 

May we together pass, and calmly try 
What are this world's true joys, — ere the great 
Voice 

From its fair face shall bid our spirits fly. 

IX. 
ADDRESSED TO HAYDON. 

HIGH-MINDEDNESS, a jealousy for good, 
A loving-kindness for the great man's fame, 
Dwells here and there with people of no name, 
In noisome alley," and in pathless wood : 
And where we think the truth least understood, 
Oft may be found a " singleness of aim," 
That ought to frighten into hooded shame 
A money-mongering, pitiable brood. 
flow glorious this affection for the cause 
Of steadfast genius, toiling gallantly 1 
What when a stout unbending champion awe* 

Envy, and malice to their native sty ? 
Unnumber'd souls breathe out a still applause, 
Proud to behold him in his country's eye. 



*04 80NNETB. 



ADDRESSED TO THE SAME. 

GREAT spirits now on earth are sojourning : 
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, 
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, 
Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing : 
He of the rose, the violet, the spring, 

The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake 
And lo ! whose steadfastness would never take 
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering. 
And other spirits there are standing apart 
Upon the forehead of the age to come ; 
These, these will give the world another heart, 
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum 

Of mighty workings ? 

Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb. 

XI. 
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOME* 

MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, 
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen 
Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne 
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken ; 
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 

He stared at the Pacific — and all his mec 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — 
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 



80NNETB SOfl 



XII. 



ON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS AT AN EARI.T 
HOUR. 

GIVE me a golden pen, and let me lean 
On heap'd-up flowers, in regions clear, and fay 
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, 
Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen 
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween : 
And let there glide by many a pearly car, 
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar, 
And half-discover'd wings, and glances keen. 
The while let music wander round my ears, 
And as it reaches each delicious ending, 

Let me write down a line of glorious tone, 
And full of many wonders of the spheres : 
For what a height my spirit is contending I 
'Tis not content so soon to be alone. 



XIII. 

KEEN fitful gusts are whispering here and there 
Among the bushes, half leafless and dry ; 
The stars look very cold about the sky, 
And I have many miles on foot to tare ; 
Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air, 
Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily, 
Or of those silver lamps that burn on high, 
Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair . 
For I am brimful of the friendliness 

That in a little cottage I have found ; 
Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress, 

And all his love for gentle Lycid' drown'd 
Of lovely Laura in her light green dress, 
And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd. 



I0 6 HON NETS. 



XIV. 

TO one who has been long in city pent, 
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair 
And open face of heaven, — to breathe a prayej 
Full in the smile of the blue firmament. 
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content, 
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair 
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair 
And gentle tale of love and lanjmishment ? 
Returning home at evening, with an ear 

Catching the notes of Philomel, — an eye 
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, 
He mourns that day so soon has glided by : 
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear 
That falls through the clear ether silently. 



xv. 

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. 

THE poetry of earth is never dead: 
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun. 
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead ■ 
That is the grasshopper's — he takes the lead 
In summer luxury, — he has never done 
With his delights, for when tired out with fun, 
Ho rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 
The poetry of earth is ceasing never : 

On a lone winter evening, when the frost 
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills 
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, 

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, 
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. 



80NNJETS. SO) 

XVI. 

TO KOSCIUSKO. 

GOOD Kosciusko ! thy great Dame alone 
Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling; 
It comes upon us like the glorious pealing 
Of the wide spheres — an everlasting tone. 
And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown, 
The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing, 
Are changed to harmonies, for ever stealing 
larough cloudless blue, and round each silvef 

throne. 
It tells me too, that on a happy day, 

When some good spirit walks upon the earth, 
Thy name with Alfred's, and the great of yore, 
Gently commingling, gives tremendous birtb 
To a loud hymn, that sounds far, far away 
To where the great God lives for evermore 



XVII. 

HAPPY is England ! I could be content 
To see no other verdure than its own ; 
To feel no other breezes than are blown 
Through its tall woods with high romances blent 
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment 
For skies Italian, and an inward groan 
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, 
And half forget what world or worldling meant 
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters ; 

Enough their simple loveliness for me, 
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging : 

Yet do I often warmly burn to see 
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, 
Aud float with them about the summer waters. 



*°* SONJN-Elb. 

xvm. 

THE HUMAN SEASONS. 

FOUR Seasons nT the measure of the year ; 
There are four seasons in the mind of man J 
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear 
Takes in all beauty with an easy span : 
He has his Summer, when luxuriously 

Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he Iot« 
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high 

Js nearest unto heaven : quiet coves 
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings 

He lurleth close ; contented so to look 
On mists in idleness — to let fair things 

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. 
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, 
Or else he would forego his mortal nature. 

XIX. 

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER. 



C 



^OME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, 

Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light, 
Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, 
And meekly let your fair hands joined be, 
As if so gentle that ye could not see, 

Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, 
# Sinking away to his young spirit's night, 
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea : 
Tis young Leander toiling to his death ; 

Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips 
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. 

O horrid dream ! see how his body dips 
Dead-heavy ; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: 
He's gone ; up bubbles all h^s amorous breath J 



H 



B0NNET8* $0S 

XT. 

TO AIL8A ROCK. 

EARREN, thou craggy ocean pyramid I 
Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowl'i 
screams I 
When were thy shoulders mantled in hug* 
streams ! 
When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid ? 
How long is't since the mighty power bid 

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams ? 
Sleep in the lap of thunder or sun-beams, 
Or when gray clouds are thy cold cover-lid ? 
Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep ! 

Thy life is but two dead eternities — 
The last in air, the former in the deep ; 

First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies — 
Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made the* 
steep, 
Another cannot wake thy giant size. 

XXI. 

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES. 

MY spirit is too weak ; mortality 
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep 
And each imagined pinnacle and steep 
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die 
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. 
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep, 
That I have not the cloud v winds to keep 
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye. 
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain, 

Bring round the heart an indescribable feud : 
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, 

That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rttdt 
Wasting of old Time — with a billowy main 
A son, a shadow of a magnitude. 



110 SONNETS 

XXIL 

TO HAYDON. 
(WITH THE PRECEDING SONNE*.) 

HAYDON I forgive me that I cannot speak 
Definitively of these mighty things; 
Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings, 
That what I want 1 know not where to seek. 
And think that I would not be over-meek, 
In rolling oat upfollowed thunderings, 
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs, 
Were I of ample strength for such a freak. 
Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine 
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture* 
hem? 
For, when men stared at what was most divine 
With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm, 
Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine & 

Of their star in the east, and gone to worship 
them! r 

XXIII. 

WRITTEN IN THE COTTAGE WHERE BURNS WAS 
BORN. 

THIS mortal body of a thousand days 
Now fills, Burns, a space in thine owin room,- 
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bayg \ 
Happy and thoughtle&s of thy day of doom! 
My pulse is warm with thine old Barley-bree, 
My head is light with pledging a great soui 
y eyes are wandering, and I cannot see, 
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal ; 
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor, 
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find 
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o er — 

let can I think of thee till thought is blind, — 
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name, — 
O smile among the shades, for this is fame I 



SONNETS. 311 

XXIV. 
TO THE NILE 

SON of the old moon-mountains African ! 
Stream of the Pyramid and Crocodile ! 
We call thee fruitful, and that very while 
A desert fills our seeing's inward span : 
Nurse of swart nations since the world began, 
Art thou so fruitful ? or dost thou beguile 
Those men to honour thee, who, worn with toil 
Rest them a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan ? 
O may dark fancies err ! They surely do ; 
'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste 
Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew 

Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste 
The pleasant sun-rise. Green isl'es hast thou too. 
And to the sea as happily dost haste. 

XXV. 

ON SITTING DOWN TO READ " KING LEAR " ONCB 
AGAIN 

OGOLDEN-TONGUEI) Romance with serene 
lute! 
Fair plumed Syren ! Queen ! if far away ! 

Leave melodizing on this wintry day, 
Shut up thine olden volume, and be mute. 
Adieu ! for once again the fierce dispute, 

Betwixt hell torment and impassioned clar 

Must I burn through ; once more assay^ 
The bitter sweet of this Shakspearian fruit 
Chief Poet ! and ye clouds of Albion, 

Begetters of our deep eternal theme, 
When I am through the old oak forest gone, 

Let me not wander in a barren dream, 
But when I am consumed with the Fire, 
Give me new Phoenix- wings to fly at my desire. 



SONNETS 



XXVI. 



REAi. „d a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud 
Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist ! 
I look into the chasms, and a shroud 
Vaporous doth hide them, — just so much I wiat 
Mankind do know of hell ; I look o'erhead, 

And there is sullen mist, — even so much 
Mankind can tell of heaven ; mist is spread 

Before the earth, beneath me, — even such, 
Even so vague is man's sight of himself ! 

Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet, — 
Thus much I know that, a poor witless elf, 

I tread on them, — that all my eye doth meet 
Is mist and crag, not only on this height, 
But in the world of taought and mental might ! 




POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 




POSTHUMOUS POEMS 



FINGAL'S CAVE. 

NOT Aladdin inagian 
Ever such a work began ; 
Not the wizard of the Dee 
Ever such a dream could see ; 
Not St. John, in Patmos' isle, 
In the passion of his toil, 
When he saw the churches seveo, 
Golden aisled, built up in heaven, 
Gazed at such a rugged wonder!-* 
As I stood its roofing under, 
Lo ! I saw one sleeping there, 
On the marble cold and bare ; 
While the surges washed his feet, 
And his garments white did beat, 
Drenched about the sombre rocks ; 
On his neck his well-grown locks, 
Lifted dry above the main, 
Were upon the curl again. 
" What is this ? and what art thou t 
Whispered I, and toueh'd his brow ;^ 
" What art thou ? and what is this ? 
Whispered I, and strove to kiss 
The spirit's hand, to wake his eyee; 
Up he started in a trice : 
11 1 am Lycidas," said he, 
" Fam'd in fun'ral minstrelsy I 
This was architectural thus 
By the great Oceanus ! — 
Here his mighty waters play 
Hollow organs all the day ; 



116 POSTHUMOUS POEMB. 

Here, by turns, his dolphins all, 
Finny palmers, great and small, 
Come to pay devotion due, — 
Each a mouth of pearls must strew t 
Many a mortal of these days 
Dares to pass our sacred ways ; 
Dares to touch, audaciously, 
This cathedral of the sea ! 
I have been the pontiff-priest, 
Where the waters never rest, 
Where a fledgy sea-bird choir 
Soars for ever I Holy fire 
I have hid from mortal man ; 
Proteus is my Sacristan ! 
But the dulled eye of mortal 
Hath passed beyond the rocky portal ; 
So for ever will I leave 
Such a taint, and soon unweave 
All the magic of the place." 
So saying, with a Spirit's glance 
He dived ! 



TO 



WHAT can I do to drive away 
Remembrance from my eyes ? for they hav« 
seen, 
Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen ! 
Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, 
What can I do to kill it and be free 
In my old liberty ? 

When every fair one that I saw was fair, 
Enough to catch me in but half a snare, 
Not keep me there : 

When, howe'er poor or particoWr'd things, 
My muse had wings, 

1 



POSTHUMOUS P0EM8. *l? 

And ever ready was to take her course 
Whither I bent her force, 
Unintellectual, yet divine to me ; — 
Divine, I say ! — What sea-bird o'er the sea 
Is a philosopher the while he goes 
Winging along where the great water throes ? 

How shall I do 

To get anew 

Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more 

Above, above 

The reach of fluttering Love, 

And make him cower lowly while I soar ? 

Shall I gulp wine ? No, that is vulgarism, 

A heresy and schism, 

Foisted into the canon law of love ; — 

No, — wine is only sweet to happy men ; 

More dismal cares 

Seize on me unawares, — 

Where shall I learn to get my peace again ? 

To banish thoughts of that most hateful land, 

Dungeoner of my friends, that wicked strand 

Where they were wreck'd and live a wrecked life 

That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour, 

Ever from their sordid urns unto the shore, 

Unown'd of any weedy-haired gods ; 

Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods, 

Iced in the great lakes, to afflict mankind ; 

Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and 

blind, 
Would fright a Dryad ; whose harsh herbaged 

meads 
Make lean and lank the starv'd ox while he feeds ; 
There bad flowers have no scent, birds no «weet 

song, 
And great unerring Nature once seems wrong. 

O, for some sunny spell 

To dissipate the shadows of this hell ! 



318 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

Say they are gone, — with the new dawning light 

Steps forth my lady bright ! 

O, let me once more rest 

My soul upon that dazzling breast ! 

Let once again these aching arms be placed, 

The tender gaolers of ti_ r waist ! 

And let me feel that warm breath here and thert 

To spread a rapture in my very hair, — 

O, the sweetness of the pain ! 

Giva me those lips again ! 

Enough ! Enough ! it is enough for me 

To dream of thee ! 



G 



HYMN TO APOLLO. 

OD of the golden bow, 
And of the golden lyre, 
And of the golden hair, 
And of the golden fire, 
Charioteer 
Of the patient year, 
Where — where slept thine ire, 
When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath, 
Thy laurel, thy glory, 
The light of thy story, 
Or was I a worm — too low crawling, for death I 
O Delphic Apollo! 

The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd, 

The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd ■ 
The eagle's feathery mane 

For wrath became stiffen'd — the sound 
Of breeding thunder 
Went drowsily under, 
Muttering to be unbound. 
O why didst thou pity, and for a worm 
Why touch thy soft lute 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS. S?J 

Till the thunder was mute, 
Why was not I crush'd — such a pitiful g*rm ? 
O Delphic Apollo ! 

The Pleiades were up, 

Watching the silent air ; 
The seeds and roots in the Earth 
Were swelling for summer fare ; 
The Ocean, its neighbour, 
Was at its old labour, 
When, who — who did dare 
Fo tie, like a madman, thy plant round his brow, 
And grin and look proudly, 
And blaspheme so loudly, 
And live far that honour, to stoop to thee now ? 
O Delphic Apollo ! 



LINES. 



TTNFELT, unheard, unseen, 
IJ I've left my little queen, 

Her languid arms in silver slumber \j* 

Ah ! through their nestling touch, 
Who — who could tell how much 
There is for madness — cruel, or complying? 

Those faery lids how sleek ! 

Those lips how moist ! — they speak, 
In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds : 

Into my fancy's ear 

Melting a burden dear, 
How " Love doth know no fulness, and no bounds .* 

True ! — tender monitors I 
I bend unto your laws : 



*20 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

This sweetest day for dalliance was bom f 

So, without more ado, 

I'll feel my heaven anew, 
For all the blushing of the hasty morn. 

1817. 

— ♦— - 

SONG, 
i. 

HUSH, hush ! tread softly ! hush, hush, my dear 
Ail the house is asleep, but we know very weE 
That the jealous, the jealous old bald-pate may 
hear, 
Tho you've padded his night-cap — O sweet 
Isabel ! 
Tho* your feet are more light than a Faery's 

feet, 
Who dances on bubbles where brooklets meet, — 
Hush, hush ! soil tiptoe ! hush, hush, my dear ! 
For less than a nothing the jealous can hear. 

n. 

No leaf doth tremble, no ripple is there 

On the river, — all's still, and the night's sleepy ey« 
Closes up, and forgets all its Lethean care, 

Charm'd to death by the drone of the humming 
May-fly ; 
And the moon, whether prudish or complaisant 
Has fled to her bower, well knowing I want 
No light in the dusk, no torch in the gloom, 
But my Isabel's eyes, and her lips pulp'd with bloom 



in. 

Lift the latch ! ah gently ! ah tenderly — sweet I 
We are dead if that latchet gives one little clink 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 821 

Well done — now those lips, and a flowery seat — 
The old man may sleep, and the planets may 
wink ; 
The shut rose shall dream of our loves and 

awake 
Full-blown, and such warmth for the morning 
take, 
The stock-dove shall hatch his soft twin-e^gs and coo^ 
While I kiss to the melody, aching all through ! 

1818. 



FAER7 SONG. 

SHED no tear I O shed no tear ! 
The flower will bloom another year. 
Weep no more ! O weep no more ! 
Young buds sleep in the root's white com 
Dry your eyes ! O dry your eyes I 
For 1 was taught in Paradise 
To ease my breast of melodies — 
Shed no tear. 

Overhead ! look overhead ! 
'Mong the blossoms white and red— 
Look up, look up. I flutter now 
On this fresh pomegranate bough. 
See me ! 'tis this silvery bill 
Ever cures the good man's ill. 
Shed no tear ! O shed no tear ! 
The flower will bloom another year; 
Adieu, Adieu — 1 fly, adieu, 
I vanish in the heaven's blue — 
Adieu, Adieu t 



21 



8*2 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCL 

A BALLAD. 



OVVHAT can ail thee, knight- a t-arms, 
Alone and palely loitering ? 
The sedge has withered from the lake* 
And no birds sing. 



IL 

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms I 
So haggard and so woe-begone ? 

The squirrePs granary is full, 
And the harvest 's done. 



in. 

I see a lily on thy brow 

With anguish moist and fever dew, 
And on thy cheeks a fading rose 

Fast withereth too. 



IV. 

I met a lady in the meads, 

Full beautiful — a faery's child, 

Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
And her eyes were wild. 



v. 

I made a garland for her head, 

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone? 

She look'd at me as she did love, 
And made sweet moan. 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS 33* 



VI. 

I §et her on my pacing steed 

And nothing else saw all d* long, 

For sidelong would she bend, a T 11$ 
A faery song. 

VII. 

She found me roots of relish eet, 
And honey wild, and manna dew, 

And sure in language strange she said 
" 1 love thee true." 



VIII. 

She took me to her elfin grot, 

And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore, 
And there I shut her wild wild eyea 

With kisses four. 



EX. 

And there she lulled me asleep, 

And there I drearn'd — Ah ! woe betide 
The latest dream I ever drearn'd 

On the cold hill's side. 



I aaw pale kings and princes too, 

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; 

They cried — " La Belle Dame sans Merd 
Hath thee in thrall ! n 



XI. 

I saw their starved lips in the gloam, 
With horrid warning gaped wid^ 



324 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

And I awoke and found me here, 
On the cold hill's side. 



XII. 

And this is why T sojourn here, 

Alone and palely loitering, 
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, 

And no birds sing. 

1819 



THE EYE OF ST. MARK 
(unfinished.) 

UPON a Sabbath-day it fell ; 
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell, 
That call'd the folk to evening prayet 
rhe city streets were clean and fair 
From wholesome drench of April rains, 
And, on the western window-panes, 
The chilly sunset faintly told 
Of unmatured green, valleys cold, 
Of the green thorny bloom less hedge, 
Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge, 
Of primroses by shelter'd rills, 
And daisies on the aguish hills. 

Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell : 
The silent streets were crowded well 
With staid and pious companies, 
Warm from their fireside orat'ries ; 
And moving, with demurest air, 
To even-song, and vesper prayer. 
Each arched porch, and entry low, 
Was fill'd with patient folk and slow. 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 325 

With whispers push, and shuffling feet, 
While play'd the organ loud and sweet. 

The bells had ceased, the prayers begun, 
And Bertha had not yet half done 
A curious volume, patch'd and torn, 
That all day long, from earliest morn, 
Had taken captive her two eyes, 
Among its golden broideries ; 
Perplex'd her with a thousand things, — 
The stars of Heaven, and angels' wings, 
Martyrs in a fiery blaze, 
Azure saints and silver rays, 
Moses' breastplate, and the seven 
Candlesticks John saw in Heaven, 
The winged Lion of Saint Mark, 
And the Covenantal Ark, 
With its many mysteries, 
Cherubim and golden mice 

Bertha was a maiden fair, 
Dwelling in th' old Minster-sqaare ; 
From iier fireside she could see, 
Sidelong, its rich antiquity, 
Far as the Bishop's garden-wall ; 
Where sycamores and elm-trees tall, 
Full-leaved, the forest had outstript, 
By no sharp north-wind ever nipt, 
So shelter'd by the mighty pile, 
Bertha arose, and read awhile, 
With forehead 'gainst the window-pane 
Again she tried, and then a^ain, 
Until the dusk eve left her dark 
Upon the legend of St. Mark. 
From plaited lawn-frill, fine and thin, 
She lifted up her soft warm chin, 
With aching neck and swimming eyes 
And dazed with saintly iinag'ries. 



r 



*2« POSTHUMOUS POEM 

All was gloom, and silent all, 
Save now and then the still foot-fall 
Of one returning homewards late, 
Past the echoing minster-gate. 
The clamorous daws, that all the day 
Above tree-tops and towers play, 
Pair by pair had gone to rest, 
Each in its ancient belfry-nest, 
Where asleep they fall betimes, 
To music aud the drowsy chimes. 

All was silent, all was gloom, 

Abroad and in the homely room : 

Down she sat, poor cheated soul ! 

And struck a lamp from the dismal coal ; 

Leaned forward, with bright drooping hair 

And slant book, full against the glare. 

Her shadow, in uneasy guise, 

Hover'd about, a giant size, 

On ceiling-beam and old oak chair, 

The parrot's cage, and panel square ; 

And the warm angled winter-screen, 

On which were many monsters seen, 

Call'd doves of Siam, Lima mice, 

And legless birds of Paradise, 

Macaw, and tender Av'davat, 

And silken-furr'd Angora cat. 

U ii tired she read, her shadow still 

Glower'd about, as it would fill 

The room with wildest forms and shades, 

As though some ghostly queen of spades 

Had come to mock behind her back, 

And dance, and ruffle her garments black. 

Untired she read the legend page, 

Of holy Mark, from youth to age, 

On land, on sea, in pagan chains. 

Rejoicing for his many pains. 

Sometimes the learned eremite. 



POSTEUMOtTS P0KM8 W 

With golden star, or dagger bright, 
Referr'd to pious poesies 
Written in smallest crow-quill size 
Beneath the text ; and thus the rhyme 
Was parcelPd out from time to time : 

"Als writith he of swevenis, 

Men han beforne they wake in bliss, 

Whanne that hir friendes thinke him bound 

In crimped shroude farre under groundc ; 

And how a litling child mote be 

A saint er it3 nativitie, 

Gif that the modre (God her blesse !) 

Kepen in solitarinesse, 

And kissen devoute the holy eroce, 

Of Goddes love, and Sathan's force, — 

He writith ; and thinges many mo 

Of swiche thinges I may not shew. 

Bot I must tellen verilie 

Somdel of Sainte Cicilie, 

And chieflie what he auctorethe 

Of Sainte Markis life and dethe : * 

At length her constant eyelids come 
Upon the fervent martyrdom ; 
Then lastly to his holy shrine, 
Exalt amid the tapers' shine 
At Venice, — 

1819. i 



TO FANNY. 

PHYSICIAN Nature ! let my spirit blood ! 
O ease my heart of verse and let me rest ; 
Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood 
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast. 
A theme ! a theme ! Great Nature 1 give a theme 



128 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

Let me begin my dream. 
I come — I see thee, as thou standest there ; 
Beckon me not into the wintry air. 

Ah ! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears, 
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries, — 
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears 

A smile of such delight, 

As brilliant and as bright, 
Aj when with ravished, aching, vassal eyes, 

Lost in soft amaze, 

I gaze, I gaze ! 

Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast ? 
What stare outfaces now my silver moon I 
Ah ! keep that hand unravished at the least; 

Let, let the amorous burn — 

But, pr'ythee, do not turn 
The current of your heart from me so soon. 

O ! save, in charity, 

The quickest pulse for me. 

Save it for me, sweet love ! though music breathe 
Voluptuous visions into the warm air, 
Though swimming through the dance's dangeroi 
wreath ; 

Be like an April day, 

Smiling and cold and gay, 
A temperate lily, temperate as fair ; 

Then, Heaven 1 there will be 

A warmer June for me. 

Why, this — you'll say, my Fanny ! is not true : 
Put your soft hand upon your snowy side, 
Where the heart beats : confess — 'tis noihinf 
new — 

Must not a woman be 

A feather on the sea* 



P0BTEUM0U8 POEM& 391 

BwayM to And fro by every wind and tide ? 
Of as uncertain speed 
As blow-ball from the mead ? 

I know it — and to know it is despair 

To one who Irves you as I love, sweet Fanny ! 

Whose heart goes flutt'ring for you every where, 

Nor, when away you roam, 

Dare keep its wretched home, 
Love, love alone, his pains severe and many • 

Then, loveliest ! keep me free, 

From torturing jealousy. 

Ah ! if you prize my subdued soul above 
The poor, the fading, brief, pride of an hour; 
Let none profane my Holy See of love, 

Or with a rude hand break 

The sacramental cake : 
Let none else touch the just new-budded flower* 

If not — may my eyes close, 

Love ! on their lost repose. 




jgi t - .•*."»„ n *0g*.4& s ~, 




SONNETS. 



i. 



OH ! how I love, on a fair summer's eve, 
When streams of light pour down the goldea 
west, 
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest 

The silver clouds, — far, far away to leave 

All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve 
From little cares ; to find, with easy quest, 
A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest, 

And there into delight my soul deceive. 

There warm my breast with patriotic lore, 

Musing on Milton's fate — on Sydney's bier — 
Till their stern forms before my mind arise : 

Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar, 
Full often dropping a delicious tear, 
When some melodious sorrow spells mine eye* 

1816. 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS 

II. 

fO A TOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUBMX 

CRO \VN. 

FRESH morning trusts have blown away all feai 
From my glad bosom — now from gloominess 
1 mount forever — not an atom less 
Than the proud laurel shall content my bier. 
No ! by the eternal stars ! or why sit here 

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press 
Anollo's very leaves, woven to biess 
By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear. 
Lo ! who dares say, " Do this ? " Who dares call 
down 
My will from its high purpose? Who say, 
44 Stand," 
Or " Go ? " This mighty moment I would frown 

On abject Caesars — not the stoutest band 
Of mailed heroes should tear off my crowL. , 
Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand ! 

in. 

AFTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains 
For a long drearv season, comes a day 
Born of the gentle south, and clears away 
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. 
The anxious mouth, relieved fiom its pains, 
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May, 
The eyelids with the passing coolness p'ay, 
Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains. 
And calmest thoughts come round us — as, of leavei 
Budding, — fruit ripening in stillness, — autumn 
suns 
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves, — 
Sweet Sappho's cheek, — a sleeping infant's 
breath, — 
The gradual sand that through an hour-glaaf 
runs, — 
A woodland rivulet, — a Poet's death. 

Am. 1817 



$32 POSTHUMOUS POEM& 

IV. 

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAI 
AT THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF u THE 



THIS pleasant tale is like a little copse : 
The honeyed lines so freshly interlace, 
To keap the reader in so sweet a place, 
So that he here and there full-hearted stops ; 
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops 
Come cool and suddenly against his face. 
And, by the wandering melody, may trace 
Which way the tender-legged linnet hop*. 
Oh ! what a power has white simplicity ! 
What mighty power has this gentle story ! 
I, that do ever feel athirst fbr glory, 
Could at this moment be content to lie 
Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbing* 
Were heard of none beside the mournful robins. 

ra. 1817 

v. 

ON THE SEA. 

IT keeps eternal whisperings around 
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell 
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell 
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. 
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found, 
That scarcely will the very smallest shell 
Be moved for days from where it sometime feU 
When last the winds of heaven were unbound. 
C ye ! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired, 

Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea ; 
O ye ! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude, 

Or fed too much with cloying melody, — 
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood 
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired ! 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 333 

VI. 

ON LEIGH HUNT3 POEM, THE " STOBY OF 
RIMINI." 

\ XTHO loves to peer up at the morning sun, 
| | With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek* 
Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek 
For meadows where the little rivers run; 
Who loves to linger with that brightest one 

Of Heaven — Hesperus — let him lowly speak 
These numbers to the night, and starlight meek| 
Or moon, if that her hunting be begun. 
He who knows these delights, and too is prone 

To moralize upon a smile or tear. 
Will find at once a region of his own, 

A bower for his spirit, and will steer 
To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone, 
Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear. 
1817 

VII. 

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be 
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming 
brain, 
Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, 

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain ; 
When 1 behold, upon the night's starr'd face, 

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, 
And think that I may never live to trace 

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance \ 
And when I fee>, fair creature of an hour ! 

That I shall never look upon thee- more, 
Never have relish in the faery pc wer 

Of unreflecting love ! — then on the shore 
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think 
Hil Love and Fame to nothingness do sink* 



154 POSTHUMOUS P0EM8 

vm, 

TO HOMER. 

STANDING aloof in giant ignorance, 
Of t^ee I hear and of the Cyclades, 
As one who sits ashore and longs percLanco 
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas. 
So thou wast blind ! — but then the veil was rent. 

For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live, 
And Neptune made for thee a spermy tent, 

And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive ; 
Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light, 

And precipices show untrodden green ; 
There is a budding morrow in midnight ; 

There is a triple sight in blindness keen : 
Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befell 
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell 

1818. 

IX. 

ANSWER TO A SONNET ENDING THUS: — 

11 Dark eyes are dearer far 
Than those that made the hyacinthine bell." 

Br J. H. IiEYNOLIS 

BLUE ! 'Tis the life of heaven, — the domain 
Of Cynthia, — the wide palace of the sun,— 
The tent of Hesperus, and all his train, — 
The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun. 
Blue ! 'Tis the life of waters — ocean 

And ail its vassal streams : pools numberless 
May range, and foam, and fret, but n3ver can 

Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness. 
Blue ! Gentle cousin of the forest-green, 

Married to green in ail the sweetest flowers — 
Forget-me-not, — the blue-bell, — and, that queen 

Of secrecy, the violet : what strange powers 
Hast thou, as a mere shadow ! But how great, 
When in an Eye thou art alive with iate 1 

M.1SB. 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 835 



TO J. H. REYNOLDS. 

OTHAT a week could be an age, and we 
Felt parting and warm meeting every week , 
Then one poor year a thousand years would be^ 
The flush of welcome ever on the cheek : 
So could we live long life in little space, 

So time itself would be annihilate, 
So a day's journey in oblivious haze 

To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate* 
O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind 1 

To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant ! 
In little time a host of joys to bind, 

And keep our souls in one eternal pant ! 
This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught 
Me how to harbor such a happy thought 



ro .• 

TIME'S sea hath been five years at its low ebb, 
Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, 
Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web, 
And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. 
And yet I never look on midnight sky, 

But I behold thine eyes' well-memoried light • 
I cannot look upon the rose's dye^ 

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its Sight : 
I cannot look on any budding flower, 

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips, 
And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour 
Its sweets in the wrong sense : — Thou dost 
eclipse 
Every delight with sweet remembering, 
And grief unto my darling joys dost bring. 



• A lady whom ht nw for •cm* momtnti at YtnThifl 



836 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

XII. 
TO SLEEP. 

OSOFT embalmer of the still midnight ! 
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign, 
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from thi 
light, 
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine; 
O soot best Sleep! if so it please thee, close, 

In midst of Uiis thine hymn, my willing eyes, 
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws 
Around my bed its lulling charities ; 
Th^n save me, or the passed day will shine 
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes; 

Save me from curious conscience, that still lordf 
Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole; 

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, 
And seal the hushed casket of my soul. 

1819. 

xi n. 

ON FAME. 

FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy 
To those who woo her with too slavish knr>es, 
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy 
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease. 
She is a Gipsey, — will not speak to those 

Who have not learnt to be content without her ; 
A Jilt, whose ear was never whisperM close, 

Who thinks they scandal her who talk about 
her ; 
A wry Gipsey is she, Nilus-born, 

Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar , 
Te lovesick Bards ! repay her scorn for scorn ; 

Ye Artists lovelorn ! madmen that ye are 
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu, 
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you. 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 3 g 7 

XIV. 
ON FAME. 
"You cannot eat yonr cake and hare it tco."— Provcrh 

HOW feverM is the man, who cannot look 
Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, 
Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, 
And robs his fair name of its maidenhood : 
ft is as if the rose should pluck herself, 

Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom; 
As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf, 

Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom, 
But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, 

For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed, 
And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire, 
The undisturbed lake has crystal space : 
Why then should man, teasing the world for 

grace, 
Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed? 

1819. 

XV 

WHY did T laugh to-night ? No voice will tell ; 
No God, no Demon of severe response, 
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell 
Then to my human heart I turn at once. — 
Heart ! Thou and I are here sad and alone ; 

I say, why did I laugh ? O mortal pain ! 
O Darkness ! Darkness ! ever must I moan, 

To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vaia 
Whv did I laugh ? 1 know this Being's lease. 

My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads ; 
Yet would I on this very midnight cease, 

And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shred*; 
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, 
But Death intenser — Death is Life's high meed. 



938 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

XVL 

ON A DREAM. 

AS Hermes once took to his feathers light, 
When lolled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and 
slept, 
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright, 

So play'd, so eharm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft 
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes, 

And seeing it asleep, so fled away, 
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies, 

Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day, 
But to that second circle of sad Hell, 

Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw 
Of rain and hailstones, lovers need not tell 

Their sorrows : — pale were the sweet lips I fan* 
Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form 
I floated with, about that melancholy storm. 

1819. 

XVII. 

IF by dull rhymes our English musfr be chain 'd, 
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet 
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness, 
Let us find out, if we must be constraint, 
Sandals more interwoven and complete 
To fit the naked foot of poesy ; 
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress 
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd 

By ear industrious, and attention meet ; 
Misers of sound and syllable, no less 
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be 
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay-wreath crow* 
So, if we may not let the Muse be free, 
She will be bound with garlands of her own. 



POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 33* 

xvni. 

THE day is gone, and all its sweets are gone ! 
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer 
breast, 
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone, 
Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang'rouf 
waist ! 
Faded the flower and all its budded charms, 

Fadsd the sight of beauty from my eyes, 
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms, 

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise ! 
Vanish'd unseasonably at shut of eve, 

When the dusk holiday — or holinight — 

Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave 

~ ... 

The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight: 
But, as I've read love's missal through to-day, 
He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray. 

1819 

I CRY your mercy — pity — love — ay, love I 
Merciful love that tantalizes not, 
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, 
Unmask'd, and being seen — without a blot I 
C ! let me have thee whole, — all — all — be mine 1 

That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest 
Of love, your kiss, — those hands, those eyes divine, 
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured 
breast, — 
Yourself — your soul — in pity give me all, 

Withhold no atom's atom, or I die, 
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall, 

Forget, in the mist of idle misery, 
Life's purposes — the palate of my mind 
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind I 



140 POSTHUMOUS POEMS. 

XX 

KEATS'S LAST SONNET. 

BRIGHT star, would I were steadfast at « 
art! 
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the nigb+* 
And watching, with eternal lids apart, 

Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, 
The moving waters at their priestlike task 

Of pure ablution round earth's human short*. 
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask 

Of snow upon the mountains and the moon 
No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, 

Pillow'd upon m) fair love's ripening brw+JL> 
To feel forever its soft fall and swell, 

Awake forever in a sweet unrest, 
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breatb« 
And so live ever — or else swoon to dew * 



Another reading : — 

Half-nasaionlesa, and so rwoon on to 



THE END. 




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